Go home Google, you're drunk! Desktop Maps says The Shard's TWO MILES from actual loc Anyone searching for directions to The Shard on the desktop version of Google Maps may be surprised to discover that the pointy, glassy London skyscraper is apparently plonked in the middle of one of the capital's best-known landmarks, Trafalgar Square. Eagle-eyed reader Pete Jones spotted the mapping blunder and tipped off …
I went searching for suit hire the other day. Google suggested a place that was near me, so off I went on foot.
When I got to the location, the place was empty and boarded up and a sign on the door said they'd permanently closed that branch.
Fair enough, I thought. Mistakes happen. I might as we'll inform Google, so that other people don't fall into the same trap and waste their time as I did.
I filed a report and then basked in the glow of civic duty done, and knowledge that I'd helped my fellow man.
Weeks later I got an email from Google from saying they'd decided not to apply my suggested change "as we found the existing details to be more appropriate". Well fuck you too Google.
You got a reply? that's better than I managed. After some discussions about line length from exchange with a member on a broadband forum - who was taking Google maps as gospel, I informed the chocolate fireguard factory that they are showing my exchange some half a mile in the wrong direction. It figures correctly on street view on a major junction on the outskirts of my town, but the maps show it as being "in town". It isn't hard to find, it sits on the side of a huge roundabout!
No reply, and years later no resolution, so Google maps are considered inaccurate in my household and are never consulted.
I also have had several corrections accepted.
You should know that mapmaker is run by Google but also by a small community. I discovered that after one of my changes was rejected, and I found that it was based on comments on my change by others, then I saw that these locals had many many changes on their name, each with discussions amongst them.
So if you have troubles getting something accepted, get deeper into it, and discuss with the person who rejected, it works. A bit like getting your patches accepted in an open source project ;)
They decided that it was a quicker route to take what was marked as a road. It was 6 foot wide dirt track on the side of a canyon that ran for miles going up and down the side of this 700 foot canyon. I thought that it was just a short stretch until I got 1/4 mile along this track and realized that the whole road was this awful dirt track and turning a 20 foot long truck round was not an option and reversing wasn't a safe option.
Sure it got me down the mountain faster but it used 50 litres of petrol to do it, a very sore backside and spine.
We hear these stories of elderly people ending up lost in the wilderness because of following mapping instructions I am starting to understand why.
I think there is Google data and user data. If you correct, for instance, road names or directions, I have found I get responses (more or less immediately, from a robot) and then some days or weeks later an update (usually, "You were right!" in a sort of startled tone of voice) and the map checks out correctly.
But landmarks all look somewhat haphazard to me and I get the distinct impression a lot of them are placed by members of the public. Illiterates, and 8-year olds, mostly, who can't map-read, because the majority of them are, as someone pointed out above, either tens of yards or several blocks off. I've never bothered to find out how to place landmarks of my own because to me the whole of Google has become arcane and opaque and I don't believe I should need to read instructions before being able to use a GUI. What isn't obvious, doesn't hack it, so I end up using a fraction of its capabilities.
Pity, but there it is. I'd rather suffer than go through the pain of a learning curve (mostly because, from bitter experience, just as soon as I learn how to use it they will change everything and I'll be back to square one). OK that's the end of my rant for tonight.
I often thought their business suggestions were odd to say the least, but thought that this was a feature for the US market where they might make a bit more effort with their data - nice to know there is clearly no point sending corrections in...
I have noticed and reported a couple of application issues - never hear back, but they have got them fixed over time:
- no tube station showing up at Liverpool St.
- the negative 0 latitude longitude bug in some versions (i.e. entering -0.02 would take you 0.02 degrees East of Greenwich)
- auto-suggest comes up with a station icon, but when picked is often some distance from the station
If I have spotted these, I can only imagine there must be heaps of other bugs across all the different versions, let alone the mapping data itself ...
I usually don't see big mistakes on google maps, mostly little items where you are directed through a city and you find out the roads google thing's are free to drive through are just actually one way streets, or blocked. I know a least one city here where google claim's it's in the middle of a highway.
So far it did bring me close enough to the spot i needed to be. Nothing is perfect...
...it's an art form, I put Googles in with Picasso.
Navigate to Sandwell Country Park and once you are past West Bromich on the M5, feel free to park on the hard shoulder as you have arrived at you destination....oh same for the massive Green Park technology estate in Reading....parts of that are also on the motorway.
I only use it if Navman is having one of it's sulks and refusing to plan a route. If that fails break out the 5 year old TomTom
Over a year ago I noticed that the Apple maps of my home area had several discrepancies, businesses ceased trading / in wrong location etc. I used the "report this" button to advise them but nothing ever got done.
Had another go a couple of months ago and am now getting "Problem Fixed" emails.
So it seems that Apple have now allocated more resources to fixing the errors. I know they got a justified slating over the maps issue but I am finding the maps app very good in my home location.
I've done a number of tests using HERE maps in my area.Their aerial views were far more up to date than Google and much better resolution (even used them for some initial construction planning) but overall the roads and location were worse and navigation not even close.
Obviously YMMV.
Whether Google Maps, HERE Maps or even Apple Maps are more accurate for one depends on location. I'd bet HERE Maps is more accurate in the EU, Google Maps in the US.
It is good to see that Apple is continuing to improve their maps. When it first came out I checked some stuff on it where I live and there were a few things a bit out of place but overall it was pretty good - certainly better than how it was portrayed in the press. When I've used it recently I can't find anything wrong where I live, so they've obviously been working behind the scenes to improve it. Presumably fixing the really big errors that made the news the first few months first, before the little local details for understandable reasons :)
I've been trying to get Google to correct our business listing for ages now.
Put in our postcode into their business manager thing and it doesn't recognise it. Drag the marker on the map to where we are and it gets the entire address right apart from the postcode.
Type our postcode into Google Maps and it recognises it and our business is pretty much at the centre.
Frustrating.
They also have a couple of our opening times wrong, still as yet unresolved.
Sort it out Google.
If you go through the process of getting a google account verified as the owner of your business, you can correct these things yourself. Never done it, but it appears to be as simple as applying, and then they ring you on the listed business telephone. You then get access to edit the listing.
Do a google for google business verification to find help on this.
I verified the business a couple of years ago. Got a postcard in the mail and entered a code into their website.
The verification process was failing when I tried it this time.
Funnily enough, I actually got an email from Jennie at Google today telling me about the account verification. I replied explaining that I had already been through the process.
About an hour ago, I received a call from a number in America which turned out to be Jennie from Google who said she'd verified my account for me and to give it a couple of days for the corrections to filter down to the search results.
Pretty good service in the end!
The Equestrian Statue of Charles I is the centre point of London by definition. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrian_statue_of_Charles_I,_Charing_Cross I guess if someone somewhere was lazy a new entry for a building in London could end up with this as it's coordinate.
Ah, the danger of Wiki. The statue is not the centre point of London, although it is very close - there is, in fact, a small brass plate let into the road surface which defines the true centre of London. Which, incidentally, was the original location of the Charing Cross monument. The one outside Charing Cross station, in the forecourt, was a tourist gimmick erected by the owners of the hotel which sits on top of the station.
Ah, the danger of Wiki. The statue is not the centre point of London, although it is very close - there is, in fact, a small brass plate let into the road surface which defines the true centre of London. Which, incidentally, was the original location of the Charing Cross monument. The one outside Charing Cross station, in the forecourt, was a tourist gimmick erected by the owners of the hotel which sits on top of the station.
OK, so it's a much smaller artefact. I wonder what would happen if we surreptitiously moved it :)
>>"OK, so it's a much smaller artefact. I wonder what would happen if we surreptitiously moved it :)"
The government's economic favouritism would shift a tiny bit Northwards for the first time since the War of the Roses. Keep moving it a little bit year by year and Westminster may, one day, even give a shit about Yorkshire.
I'm not at the location at the moment so can't check the text myself, but doing an image search for the brass plate shows the following text:
"On the site now occupied by the statue of King Charles I was erected the original Queen Eleanor’s Cross…Mileages from London are measured form the site of the original cross"
I'm the OP. The first time I was in London, about 35 years ago loooong before the Wiki even existed, someone told me that the statue was the centre. I merely included the Wikipedia link as I though it might interest others, it wasn't the source of my mistake.
So, surprise surprise, the distortion of facts predates the existence of Wikipedia but the the nice thing about the Wiki is that you now have a chance to go an put them right once and for all. A point that seems to be missed by its detractors.
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I suppose it's important to know the precise centre of London, so when the United Kingdom's own black hole eventually sucks everything in towards itself, we need to know precisely *where* the singularity will be when it disappears up its own self-regarding arse. :-P
For what it's worth, I wonder if Londoners would even notice if Inverness and Cardiff swapped places on Google Maps? ;-)
At the moment, for some reason, parts of Street View appear to be giving black screens.
I was looking for a location near Russell Square in London WC1B 5BB but Street View showed no images, just black.
Other locations, however, worked fine.
Maybe it's an anti-terrorism measure...!!!
...why not correct them using Google MapMaker, which is here: https://www.google.co.uk/mapmaker?hl=en You can add new features, correct errors, report business closures, and they are acted upon. I've submitted lots of bits and pieces and you can see if and when they get approved in the sidebar.
I used Google Maps to navigate when taking my kids to their friends' houses, when it was one I hadn't already had been to. Often, when I just entered a postcode to get me to the right street Google would take me directly to the correct front door, "Your destination is on the right(or left)" and it was. Creepy.
Nah mate, just sit back and let an experienced cabbie take you the professional driver's route. Now dah'n to the Elephant and Castle, we need to go via Brixton, there; you can see the Electric Avenue Polo Club where Eddie Grant use to ride, to avoid the Shoreditch market, into the Blackwall Tunnel (sorry guv'nor, the toll is extra, gets taken automatically from my number plate so I need to add a tenner to the meter) then we need to head round to the delights of Hackney, Homerton, Haggerston and up the back into Notting Hill before heading down into Knightsbridge and up Picadilly.
Sorry, you wanted the route via Mornington Crescent? Should'a said mate, hang on, I'll do a quick u-ey
(I had that Mister Uber in my cab once. German chap, at least he mentioned Doichlund. Think his surname was Alles or sumfink. Didn't realise he was after me job....)
Any old vandal is free to spoil the Google Maps, unfortunately. It happened around here a week or two ago, some idiot changed the name of a local park to something silly and the reviewers went and accepted the changes! I tried to revert it, and the feature got deleted! I'm still waiting for them to notice my comments and put things right again.
Going by the names, the reviewers seem to a bunch from (how can I say a poorer country without being non-PC?) .... and paid by the review without any care for what the accuracy of the map is.
I put in a fair amount of time tidying up my area - a few thousand edits - but things are getting so bad (approval now takes ages if it happens at all) that I've given up. Let their map be a laughing stock, maybe I'll care again when they sort it out.
But I'm hardly worried about it, since all the relevant delivery/emergency services know where I am.
Google my address, it points at wrong end of the road. All addresses on this street point to that one house.
Follow Google maps, and the road they show turns up a neighbors driveway and ends. Half the street isn't even shown.
It isn't like this is a new road either, it and several of the houses date back to the eighteen-forties.
Over the years I have found Google's maps have become less and less accurate. In fact there are locations that I know have been reported as totally inaccurate to Google being several miles out, some 10 or 15 miles out but they claim to have corrected it only for it to revert to the wrong location again a few weeks later.
There are many roads that do not exist, others that it argues do exist when they don't exist and some that it gives a totally different name to.
There are some people that send in revisions that I know of to make it difficult to locate their address or complain about street view of their home, the fact that it is totally obscured behind 30 foot trees and 12 foot high bushes.
These day's, I must sadly say, Google maps is no longer a good solution and Apple maps is slowly getting far more accurate.
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