Not Accepted But Applied: "Phantom Rejection" Bug in Google Maps

[ErmesT]

Hi everyone,

This is a situation I brought up with the team some time ago. However, as it continues to happen, I am wondering if this is an isolated issue on my end or if others in the community are experiencing the exact same thing.

What is happening? It concerns edits - specifically adding new roads - that are marked as “Not Accepted” in our notification history, but are actually applied and fully live on Google Maps.

Here are a few examples:

(Below: A screenshot of Google Maps showing 6 roads added on August 24th, with inset images from the confirmation emails showing the status and location)

(In the next image, the same area clearly shows that the roads were indeed added to Google Maps)

(Here is the same situation for 4 edits submitted on July 22nd)

As mentioned, this is a known behavior that was reported a while ago but remains unresolved.

It is the kind of issue that can really undermine the motivation to contribute. Not only has the approval rate for road edits dropped significantly—leaving thousands of edits pending indefinitely (or for the classic 90 days before expiring due to overtime)—but in my case, the majority of edits marked as “Not Accepted” are actually applied, with the roads published on Maps.

Extending to Place Edits What is new, at least for me, is seeing this exact same behavior with listing edits on Google Maps.

While it is not always easy to verify if a rejected or pending edit was secretly applied, it becomes crystal clear when it involves a business name correction.

Below is an example of two edits—one “Pending” and one “Not Accepted”—where you can clearly see that the name correction has already been applied to the live place profile:

Is this happening to you as well?

I suspect I am not the only one, but I need your help to gather concrete evidence for Google to review and fix this approval notification process.

If you have encountered this same situation, please reply below with clear examples. To help make these reports as conclusive as possible, please include:

1. A screenshot of the edit status (from your email or the Contributions tab) showing the date and the “Not Accepted” or “Pending” state.

2. A screenshot of Google Maps showing that the road or correction is actually live. (Tip: Please check the location in an Incognito window or while signed out to confirm the edit is visible to everyone, rather than just stored in your local client cache).

This is not a matter of points or badges—it is simply about accuracy, transparency, and maintaining our motivation as contributors.

C.c. @TinaWill

[WilfriedB]

@ErmesT

Is this happening to you as well?

I have seen several cases, where my edit “Temporary closed” was rejected, but in reality the store appeared as temporary closed. My explanation was, somebody else reported it at the same time, I did. Since the most recent place opened again last week and was still marked as closed, I just submitted a re-opening and it was accepted within seconds.

[shaileno]

@ErmesT

significantly—leaving thousands of edits pending indefinitely (or for the classic 90 days before expiring due to overtime)—but in my case, the majority of edits marked as “Not Accepted” are actually applied, with the roads published on Maps.

Seems new pattern

But seriously, @ErmesT sir, I want to tell you about an experience I had from a previous TRAC Session.

At that time, I had about 5,000 approved roads, and they were clearly visible on my Contribution Profile. When I started creating roads again during that session, I noticed a strange behavior.

Let’s say I created 100 roads in a day, and 50 of them were approved. As soon as those 50 roads were approved, my approved road count in my Contributions decreased by 50.

At first, I thought it might be a temporary update or sync issue. But when I observed this 4-5 times in a row, and each time I saw the same pattern—50 roads were approved, and my contribution count decreased by 50—I couldn’t understand what was happening.

Then I brought my contribution count back to about the 5,000 road mark and stopped there. After that, I stopped creating roads because I was afraid that the already approved contributions would continue to decrease.

I thought, “Hey, why are the same roads that have already been approved and are visible on my Contribution Profile, getting subtracted from my contribution count as new roads are approved?”

And I shared this entire experience with @Kumaarsantosh as well.

Honestly, this is why I didn’t continue road mapping further, because I couldn’t understand whether this was expected behavior, some counting logic, or a bug/sync issue.

[TitikMariati]

Terimakasih bapak @ErmesT

[UzeyirMikayil]

Sağol, çox sağol!

[TitikMariati]

Sama-sama @UzeyirMikayil terimakasih kembali ya

[ErmesT]

Not sure you have understood my post, @TitikMariati
I am talking about contributions that appears as rejected but in fact are applied, and your reply is not related to the subject of this topic.

[TitikMariati]

Aduh Bapak @ErmesT saya salah yaaa , aduh maapin saya bapak . Kok akhir-akhir ini saya salah memaknai postingan . Sampai cuci wajah saya . Kalau begitu saya tidak ada pengalaman bapak. . Maapin saya . Izin saya menghapusnya ya bapak. Saya malu e

[Annaelisa]

Es tut mir leid, @ErmesT, ich bearbeite zwar vieles, aber ich verlasse mich auf Google Maps und überprüfe es nicht.

[khmansour1]

Hi @ErmesT ,

recently I have found roads in agricultureal fields and I have decided to deleted them every weekend.

For example last weekend 27 & 28 August 2026 I deleted about 1200 roads. I think I got approvals for about 100-200 roads and the rest are rejected but applied!

forgive me retriving old edits is time consuming as you know (more RAM more CPU) and the DOM is getting big.

I have all the emails and I need to search them.

Regards,

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @ErmesT

I don’t do many road edit, but normal edits. For years I have noticed the when I edit a place name they do get fixed dispite not showing as approved in the edit contribution list. Typically, they remain pending.

I have not reported this for the following reasons:
I do edit the place names in both Danish and English. And I often change the app language. And which language the place name is shown in in the edit contribution list depends on the chosen app language.
And the name fields are not labeled. So I often see a pending edit but the name has been corrected! It looks ridiculous, but I fear that it could be because only one of the two languages got approved. And since I can see which is which I just let it go because that might explain it.
Pewww this is difficult to explain.

I have not been so structured to systematically test this by only using one app language and only edit Danish or English names for a while.

If the team cares to investigate this I can provide relevant screenshots.

[ErmesT]

@MortenCopenhagen

which language the place name is shown in in the edit contribution list depends on the chosen app language.

This is absolutely true, @MortenCopenhagen . The two places on my example only have the Italian name in Google Maps.
So it was simple to detect the issue

[ErmesT]

@khmansour1

forgive me retriving old edits is time consuming as you know (more RAM more CPU) and the DOM is getting big.

I well know what you mean, @khmansour1 , and how painful is to detect the change of the status of an edit after the last changes made by Google Maps in the edit list.
But if you can detect and share a couple of them it will be great

[PeteMHW]

Hi @ErmesT Hope you are well!

I have a few edits like this. One example follows.

I tried several times to mark as closed the Costa Coffee Outlet on Market Street in Manchester. Each time with more detail/proof. I’m attaching the photo proof I sent with my most recent attempt on 7th July and you can see from my screen shot that this was not accepted, and remains so. Yet you can also see (map screen shot) that it is now marked as permanently closed.

The same situation applies to Caffè Nero next door, which also remains not accepted on my edit list but is now permanently closed. Both due to significant building works.

Original evidence photos submitted 7/7/26

Original email thanking for edit and it is pending:

Follow the view edits link and it’s showing (still) as not accepted:

Yet on Maps today (3/9/26) it’s shown as permanently closed:

I hope this is the kind of example you’re looking for. I have more.