How Did My Custom Google Map Get 14,000 Views?

Back in October, 2007, I was messing around with Google’s then-new ‘My Maps’ feature. I made a map of all my favourite spots on Gozo (here’s the related blog post), the Maltese island where we lived for nine months. I added a bunch of Flickr photos and a couple of links to this site.

Today I was making a quick map using the same feature, and browsed through some of my older maps. I was surprised to discover that my Gozo memory map has received 13984 views. That seems like a lot. I just made it on a lark on a slow day in Malta.

I wasn’t sure where all those map views were coming from. I looked around, and wasn’t able to find a way to search all of Google’s publicly-accessible custom maps. Assuming they’re including them in Google Maps search results, I searched Google Maps for ‘Gozo’ (and variations), and noticed that my map is the only one listed under ‘User-Created Maps’.

I suppose, under certain circumstances, this would be a useful SEO strategy. You could embed links in placemark descriptions and, assuming they looked useful, Google Maps users might click them. I might add some relevant links to some more markers to test if it drives any traffic.

Browsing through my other custom maps, I see that our Sahara trip map has about 6000 views, and our zone-we-want-to-live-in map has about 4700 views. It’s not obvious what differentiates a popular map from an unpopular one. Any ideas?