After noticing an alert message on the Top 100 Leaderboards, I decided to clean up my hidden contributions. While cleaning up my hidden photos and videos on Google Maps, I wanted to delete some media marked under ‘Unknown place’—even though they had some views. I opened Google Maps on my desktop using Chrome in private mode and sorted the photos by date. To my surprise, I noticed that some of those hidden media were showing up under the correct places (POIs) when using incognito mode. Even more interesting, the next day, a few of the photos that were earlier under ‘Unknown place’ were now correctly linked to places (even in private mode).
I wanted to share this experience—has anyone else noticed the same thing?
@PrasadVR My recent experience with “Unknown Place” relates to places that have closed. Although reluctant to lose my points and views, I eventually deleted them so that my count of hidden media would be reduced.
I haven’t notice this, but I believe to have an explanation:
The place was deleted by mistake, but somebody appealed and luckily it was reinstated. The discrepancy between your and the public contributions was very likely caused by not all servers being updated at that time.
Very interesting! This confirms my concept, not to delete hidden photos assigned to “Unknown place”.
I would like to clarify, @WilfriedB, In the beginning, I deleted some media that were linked to unknown places. Later, while checking some more unknown places , I noticed something. The photos I’m referring to here were not deleted — they are still available. They showed up under ‘Unknown place’ in my private account and also at the correct place at the same time in incognito mode. As I said, some photos now appear at the correct POI even in private.
Thank you for sharing your observations! As @WilfriedB mentioned, this could be a matter of synchronization.
Do the places in your screenshots (C.L.C. Ministries and Four Points by Sheraton Visakhapatnam) still appear as ‘Unknown places’ when you view them from your account? Or do they now appear under the correct name?
If you notice this happening again with more places, please share some more screenshots and links to the locations so that we can escalate it further. Thank you!
This is interesting @PrasadVR
I’ve tried to replicate it, but unsuccessful.
I have two types of photos associated to “Unknown places”.
Photos of places that have been (wrongly) removed from Maps, instead to flag them as Permanently Closed
Photospheres added in the past with the Street View App
By checking the photos in Incognito some do not appear, others are showing “unknown place”. No one is showing the name of the business.
When were the photo posted? Are we talking of recent photos or old ones?
I just went through all the photos I have posted over the past 6 months and I found 51 photos belonging to nowhere. I did this on my Android phone. And I made 51 screenshots.
All of these belong to nowhere because my attempts to add new places were not approved.
The text “Unknown place” is nowhere to be seen. There is just no place mentioned.
They all have no views. But I saw one with a reaction heart.
A few makes sense as I tried to add a bank or other financial service.
Next step will be to check all these on Desktop to see if the also show as not belonging to a place.
Thank you, @DeniGu for your message and for looking into this.
As of today, I’ve checked both photos — they now appear at the correct location, both in private and incognito mode. So, the issue seems to be resolved for C.L.C. Ministries and Four Points by Sheraton Visakhapatnam. They no longer show as ‘Unknown place’.
If I notice this again with other places, I’ll definitely share more screenshots and location links as suggested. Thanks to you @MortenCopenhagen, @WilfriedB and @ErmesT for your helpful support.
@MortenCopenhagen “not approved” means rejected or pending? I also noticed, after adding a new place and immediately posting a photo, even after the place was accepted, the photo didn’t indicate the place yet.
Recently, I decided to wait until approval and being able to find the place before posting any photos.
