Ah @AdamGT , you have hit me where it hurts! But I do thank you for posting this as it is helpful to see different points of view and learn.
My star photo and video both have this problem and it is painful. The POI in this instance is an Event that happens once a year, and I’m not 100% certain, but I think Google made some changes that seem to only show the POI while the event is active, and then it is ‘hidden’.
The reason behind my thinking is the following. I attended another event and uploaded a photo and a review. After a few months, I received an email from Google that the review had not been posted and that the place was removed from Google Services like Maps and Search. It also stated that no action is needed from me and that if the place is restored, so will my content.
Maybe it’s my wishful thinking, or maybe they completely removed (these) events as POI.
Those are not my only examples of dealing with this unfortunately, I have a few more photos that have no POI (does not say Unknown, just blank) and location points in the middle of nowhere. I always look to see what happened and my first thought is the place closed down. However, most of them are still open and yet my photos are somehow not connected to them anymore and I am at a loss of what to do.
I am surprised to see some people haven’t dealt with this (yet), when it seems like it has happened a lot to me.
I have thought about deleting the photos, but can’t bring myself to do it honestly, when my next star photo doesn’t even have a third of the views 
I am always investigating Adam. As you know I religiously go thru my contributions to find unproductive shots. This is the time of month when I check my last 6 -18 months worth of contributions. Today I found one like that and also found 2 with “No Poi name”. Found the name by looking at the sign in the photo)
I investigated and found all had closed down and funny enough their was another business in it’s place. They are all deleted, wish I had seen this post previously.
So my advice “Investigate”
Similar to @JanVanHaver in my annual clean up last August I removed 14 photos with a total of over 15 million views. Ouch, took me months to regroup those views.
Are you using mobile or desktop? I notice it says Unknown on desktop, but simply shows up blank on mobile.
I can quite understand this. An annual event can be staged anywhere, but the chosen location at any given time is not really a POI, so I wouldn’t do this. Just imagine 3 or 4 months later, someone looking for the event and Google navigates them to an empty place.
Terry, you guys really blow me away with these kinds of numbers. I recently deleted 10 low scoring. photos in an experiment to replicate the experience of another LG who’d lost more views then he expected. And that was painful for me, because I’m trying to reach 1000 photos this year to get the Master Photographer badge. Also, if I remove 15 million views from my history, I’d only have 10 million left. Somewhat different to yours which started at billions. I certainly admire you LGs with high performing profiles. Keep up the good work.
A place could close or a new business takes over and so your previously contributed photo(s) and/or video(s) become orphans, that is, they don’t have a parent POI! No one other than yourself when scrolling through your media contributions will ever see them again. So this is why I asked the question.
Thanks for explaining @JanVanHaver and now we all can understand why you decided to send 4 million views down the drain in just 1 click for a photo of a POI that still exists. If the POI still exists after the makeover, why do you think the AI decided to label your photo as Unknown place?
@JustJake as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, I’m playing the Devil’s advocate in this post and trying to understand the behaviour of Local Guides in such cases. As I mentioned in my reply to @Annaelisa, if a POI no longer exists then don’t any media contributed to this POI become orphans and no Maps user will ever see them again? So why would you leave such media on Maps?
Thank you for coming back and explaining @ShailendraOjha. This helps everyone understand why you voted as you did and by sharing we all lean more about these situations.
There are a number of possibilities. For example, maybe the business closed and therefore no longer exists!
Yes it existed then but as in my example above the business does not exist now! In this case, the purpose of Maps is to help Maps users find the location, how to get there or is it worth visiting but if the business no longer exists then that media doesn’t help them in any way. To begin with, they can’t see that media as it is hidden in some Unknown place! The only person that can see the media on that Unknown place is Shailendra!
Yes updating the photo helps Maps users but for the reasons mentioned above, the old photos would not help in any way because, they will never be seen! They are not attached to the new business, they now are attached to that Unknown place!
Thank you @AdamGT Sir, you replied, I learnt something and understood something.Your reply reminds me of a saying my father once said but I can’t repeat it here in an online forum. I will tell you when we meet face to face. You will be very happy sir!
Great examples of exceptions @WilfriedB and thank you for sharing them with us.
I agree that when you know that the place still exists as in your first example of a historical monument then reporting it is the sensible thing to do and I have experienced similar situations myself.
This case is really interesting Wilfried. If the POI was converted into a geographic feature, where we cannot add photos then how was this solved? Was the place reconverted to its original category?
That is very unfortunate. Is the message here to not react to quickly! Investigate why the restaurant disappeared?
What do you think are your options in this case?
It was not labeled Unknown place, I just remembered it in the context of this discussion.
Es handelt sich beispielsweise um unser Eckernförder Bucht oder auch um einen anderen See, Landschaftsaufnahmen halt.
Unsere Bucht und der See sind nicht verschwunden. @AdamGT
So your example is off topic then @JanVanHaver LOL
Yes, the latter is true, @AdamGT. A Google moderator here on Connect escalated it. It was hidden from June, 28 till July 19, 2024. This and two other photos at this POI.
Unfortunately it was a stopover on the way from central Italy to Sicily, so 1,000+ km far away from me. So impossible to go there and I didn’t see a reason to call them. Very likely, we will never get close to it again 
Good question. Tell me 
Again, yet another place far way from me now and no plans to go there soon.
Yes I agree @WilfriedB. Move on. There are many other much easier issues to handle.
Ah!..
Ciao @JustJake ,
one of my favorite restaurant closed two years ago. I have followed the procedure and mark as “permanently closed”. I also added the picture of the work in progress. I added review and pictures of the new BAR opened.
Now the old restaurant is “temporally close”
200 meters from my windows there was a gasoline station. Despite all my efforts (sent pictures and you can also see on [google.earth] that the place is no longer existing (https://earth.google.com/web/@45.42089571,9.25768249,103.06608403a,309.5548948d,35y,0h,0t,0r/data=CgwqBggBEgAYAUICCAE6AwoBMEICCABKDQj___________8BEAA) -google maps still have the pictures with the gasoline station- )
Sure that the process should be revised! (but I’m also aware that we are millions of people that can “create” or “delete” something and that the process could be really complex..)
Ciao
Marco
I totally agree with you @PrasadVR, photos hidden for the Unknown place are different from photos hidden because they violated the rules.
Yes that could happen but how long would you wait if a place is marked as permanently closed?
So you investigate and you find that the place is closed and there’s a new business there so would you then delete your photo(s) marked as Unknown place or hang on to them because of the views?
I follow your example up to where you make the above statement. What do you mean you added (Unknown Place) to the POI name? It’s the Maps AI that does this re-classification of our media. In any event if it has been moved to that Unknown place then as you have observed its views would not increase beyond 1,024 because no one other than yourself can see it.
The numbers don’t compare but it’s all relative and this topic is more about the principles involved - what do you do with your media allocated to this Unknown place. BTW I did think about making this a multi-choice poll but then saw some problems with the options.
Great to see that you voted @Gvipin so now, let me play the Devil’s advocate. You have investigated as I did and you discover that the place has permanently closed and there’s a new business there, so what would you do now?
Thanks for your honest reply @KetanChhaniyara, that’s what we want and it is really appreciated. I can understand that you may not have encountered such situation yet but what if you do and you discover that the business has permanently shut shop! would you still leave the photo as is?