How often do Mapquest, etc, update their aerial pics?

[3rdShot]

In the last year and a half, we've cleared the cedars and other brush out of a couple of stand areas on our lease. The neighboring property across the county road changed owners and the new guy had a dozer come in and completely clear and root plow the old fence line and put up new goat wire fence. Neither of these changes are shown on terra server, mapquest or the standard traffic / satellite app on my iPhone, all the cedar clumps on our place and the brushy fence line on the neighbor's place is still showing up.

Any idea how often aerial maps are updated? Or are there other free sites that are more up to date?

Thanks,

Dave

[Sackett]

I believe Google Earth updates approximately every 2-3 years....but I may be wrong.

[CaptainDave]

As far as google maps is concerned, answers vary greatly. Some say outwards to 2-3 years while others say within months.

We were building a house a couple years back and I kept looking for it to show up on the google satellite imagery. It didn't show up for about 6 months. So, I know at least for that region, there was no update for at least 6 months. However, I don't know how long it had been without an update before I starting checking it.

I'm sure there are other sites that may update more frequently. However, if you don't catch it right before they update, you might still be in a for a decent lag time.

[snappertapper]

A lot of it depends on the area. Urban areas are updated much more frequently than rural areas. Highly populated areas more so than less populated and so on...

[scdavis50]

You can download relatively current (<12 months old) aerials for Texas from TNRIS - there are a number of shareware or freeware viewers you can use to open them.

[Unicorn]

Like you, our lease and the neighboring property has changed big time over the past year, with clear cutting in both areas. Without aeriel maps we're guessing at what the real lay of the land is (amount of cover, potential bedding areas etc). Google Earth only shows image updates in our area every 3-4 years. If you figure out a good source with the very latest satellite maps, please let me know.

Makes me laugh tho; how did we possibly survive before satellite maps?

[krisw]

Unless GoogleEarth has updated in the last month, the maps of my area are getting close to 16 months old. My neighbor moved out right after Halloween and their car is backed up to the door getting loaded.