Missing Smithsonian museum

[KenyaA]

There's a problem with the following locations on Google Maps:

Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

The latter location is removed from the map and my reviews associated with it have been moved to the former. In addition, the photos for the latter are moved to the former.

I tried to update but that was before I saw exactly what the problem was.

[YK1001]

Hi @KenyaA,

It sounds like the latter is merged into the former, as indicated by the reviews.

Please post the Place link and Review Link here, so that Experts can look up them easier.

Thank you for reporting this issue, I also interested to know  if there are better ways for LG to handle situations like this.

[KenyaA]

This is the link for Smithsonian National Museum of American History: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Smithsonian+National+Museum+of+American+History/@38.8912835,-77.03...

Your theory that the two museums were merged on maps makes sense. All of the recent reviews and photos I see are from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

I'm posting here because I don't know where else to post this.

[YK1001]

Hi @Flash,

I am mentioning you, as @KenyaA reported a Museum disappeared from Maps, which I suspect it is being incorrectly merged with another Meseum.

If the merge is indeed incorrect, what we LG should be doing?

Thank you in advance!

https://nmaahc.si.edu/visit/faq

I find the visitor FAQ from the Museum website.

Not sure if the merge can be undone or not.

Let's wait for the Experts to weigh in.

[MikeS]

The merge was a mistake and must be undone as soon as possible.  The Museum of African American History and Culture is a separate and extremely popular (and heavily searched) museum.

[Flash]

Hello,

I'm sorry to respond here late, I have multiple forum I monitor so I normally don't respond if there appears to be answers being provided.  Sampson, as an experienced moderator of Google forums I'd offer the advice of not being tempted to answer unless you can provide a solution.  I know you wanted to acknowledge the post and let the OP know that her issue had been heard; but this means that others will see that a moderator has addressed the post and they will move on without reading the post.  The best action if you do not have answers is to leave the post alone for someone else to answer.  

With regards to the issue, there are two possibilities here.  I could dig into this more in Map Maker and perhaps better predict which one has occurred; but since Map Maker is closing in a little over a month I'll explain this without using it so this can be a reference for future instances.

Google gathers information from many resources to populate the map.  When a resource indicates that a POI (place) exists then it is created on the map with that resource then being a data feed into that POI.  If the resource updates, the POI updates.

When there are multiple resources this would create multiple, duplicate POIs for a place.  How that is handled is that all but one are marked as duplicates, which hides them from view and makes those POIs a feed into the POI that remains visible.  Some of this is automatic; for example if resource indicates a new POI but through algorithms the system finds a POI already exists it either makes that resource a feed into the existing POI or creates a new POI but auto-duplicates it to the first (it's unclear which occurs, and probably depends on whether a POI can have more than one resource directly cited).  And the feeds can daisy chain, so if you see one POI it might have 5 other POIs feeding into it, and 2 of those might have 3 other POIs each feeding into them.

Separately you should know that items such as reviews are kept on a separate database which is occasionally reindexed (it used to be once a month).  This is a logical way to handle it, as it means that when a POI is hidden due to being a duplicate the review can then be reindexed and attached to the remaining POI.

So what may have happened here is:

1. One POI was marked as a duplicate of the other, or
2. One POI was deleted.

With the way the system works it would in both cases result in reviews then showing up on the remaining POI.

What you should always assume is the first option, because if that has occurred then it's important to take a hands off approach and let Google fix things.  This is because in the case of a duplicate merge the POI now equally represents both places and has resources for both places feeding into it.  Trying to edit it so that it represents one or the other will never work.  Should both be GMB claimed then it will now have two different "owners" in control via their GMB dashboards.

Because if this only Google can untangle an incorrect merge, as it requires backend access to see all the feeds, the GMB ownership, the history, etc.  So to fix the issue you should use Feedback, and since we cannot fix this via edits you should choose Other Feedback.  Explain something along the lines of "It appears that an mistaken duplicate merge has occurred.  A and B former existed, but now just this feature exists and it is exhibiting the characteristics of both formerly separate POIs." 

Insert the best descriptions you can for A and B.  If necessary, add additional comments that explain why they should be separate if that is not immediately obvious.  Some of the best information would be separate company owned URLs with contact pages that show separate phone numbers.

Please note that duplicate merges can be extremely hard to untangle, so this can take some time.

[YK1001]

Hi @Flash,

Thank you for your advice.

I will take note for posts in this board.