Zoom Hack for Google Maps: Reports are Bogus
If you follow Tech news at all you will have heard, read or seem pictures of what are claimed to be mega-zoomed images on Google Maps. Further that these images are accessed by “hacking” a URL to display a higher “hidden” zoom level. Most feature a camel or what appears to be a village somewhere. Sorry to burst your bubble but no such hack exists or is necessary to see these images. It is a featured layer in Google Earth.
According to Google Sightseeing all this started after the Australia Day flyover and the not so recent African flyover project (2005). The results of both these flyovers are images with a higher zoom and translates to one or two steps in zoom levels that can be seen. These flyovers are done with light aircraft at low altitude. People don’t often look up to observe a passing satellite!
The high zoom levels are thanks to the National Geographic Layer that was added to Google Earth in September 2005. Google Earth blog covered this story in August 2006. In relation to this project there is a great collection of Placemarks that list a heap of animals from Africa and opening it in Google Earth will give you links to the photos, link is on the Google Earth Blog Post.
So there is no big conspiracy of hidden zoom levels or hacks to access them. Just turn on the “National Geographic Magazine Layer” in Google Earth under Featured Content. The long and the short is that the story is that there is no story.
If you don’t have Google Earth then I would highly recommend that you take a look you can get Google Earth Here.