| Google puts far too much stock into the "accuracy" of its Maps data. Here's my fun story: in order to verify my dad's website with Google's 'My Business' service (now a defunct product?), they had to mail a physical postcard with PIN code to ensure the address was legitimate. Picking the mailing address was hooked into Maps/ Maps data; a "real" address had to be among their existing database of addresses. Well, my dad lives in a somewhat-rural area outside St. Louis. His street is "Alt Road" -- named after the Alt family, German immigrants who started a large farm in the area 150+ years ago. Yet Google Maps had the street listed as "Alternate Road". Clearly some data entry person presumed it must be an abbreviation and took liberty to 'correct' the apparent mistake. So it was literally impossible to have a postcard mailed to his address on Alt Road. I had to have it sent to Alternate Road instead. I recognize, of course, the verification steps taken thereafter will have permanently corroborated what was bad data in first place. Now I'm part of the problem. I'm guessing Maps will now forever have renamed the street. Should I alert the county to Dad's 'new' mailing address? |
The funny thing is, Google can get updated road info in a timely manner as most counties offer a weekly dump of their map data. Open Street Maps is often on point in rural areas due to pulling these weekly dumps, meanwhile the 3rd party vendors Google buys their address data from rarely pull down the publicly owned dataset, contributing to the shoddy quality of Google Maps outside most cities.