Brand new to Google Earth?

Click here to read about Google Earth, learn the basics, and how to search for places in Google Earth.

I've found my house on Google Earth, but the roads don't appear to match up exactly. Why is this?

Some of the maps aren't scaled to perfection. Each portion of the map is being constantly revisited, and checked to try and perfect the alignment, orientation, etc.

Why am I seeing white blocks with arrows in them?

This is a placeholder for the overlays. They will appear as white blocks while Google Earth downloads the overlays from the website. As each overlay is loaded into Google Earth, the white blocks will be replaced with the map overlay. For dial-up users, this process may take awhile. Each portion of the overlay is a high-resolution picture that must be downloaded from the website before it can be viewed in Google Earth.

I'm seeing a "ghosting" effect, or what looks like two copies of the overlays, one on top of the other. Why is this?

You may have two separate copies of the overlays loaded into Google Earth. Scroll your 'Places' window on the right-hand column and check for duplicate entries. If all else fails, remove all of the overlays from Google Earth, visit the website, and download them again! The screenshot below will show you how to delete the overlays:

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