Hi @MichelleMaria and welcome to the community.
Firstly, “star photo” is a term I introduced into the Local Guide vernacular to refer to our most viewed photo on Maps (read more about this here). In this way, we all have a star photo and congratulations on yours of Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, with 9.3m views it’s amazing.
Secondly, from my reading of your question I believe that you are asking about how to add your photo to the star photo ecosystem of the Leaderboards which both @WilfriedB and @tony_b mention and Wilfried correctly says includes an album of star photos as well as the monthly star photo leaderboards. It has absolutely nothing to do with the “cover photo” of the Place of Interest (POI) on Maps. From this, the steps to add your star photo are as follows:
-
Add your photo to the album of star photos. Follow the steps mentioned there and use the many star photo examples in the album to guide you.
-
Add the details on the Top 100 Leaderboard System > Data Entry > Your Stars > Star Photo.
Now as noted by @tony_b, your star photo has been flagged as Unknown Place on Google Maps which usually means the specific business or location was either deleted, merged, or flagged for a policy violation. As a result, your photo was unlinked from its previous spot. I feel that something could be amiss here as Hạ Long Bay exists as a Place of Interest on Maps so it’s unclear why your contributed photo has been tagged as “Unknown place”. I therefore suggest that you firstly follow the above procedure to add your photo onto the star photo ecosystem of the Leaderboards and secondly, as the POI clearly exists on Maps, submit an appeal using this form.
In the meantime, we all look forward to seeing your star photo shinning brightly on the Leaderboards.