How does Google Earth work?

What ho one and all,

A trivial question but I am fascinated.

I built my house about six years ago, and when I look at it on Google Earth, the best quality image is dated 2009, when it was still a building site. Anything from last year is total rubbish; cloud cover / dark / fuzz, a complete waste of time even looking.

A good friend has just moved into a house that he built, around 60 miles away, and again, when I look at his house on GE, it is a wonderful image, dated 2015.

How come his GE image is so new but mine is 7 years ago? Not that I can do anything about it, just interested in how GE works.

Toodle pip and thanks

Rex

Google (pun intended) your thread tile and report back your findings;)