[konspence]

I would add to this article that a major issue with Google Maps has been businesses trying to SEO-pad their business names on Google Maps, to the detriment of readability.

This is also against their TOS – the "business name" form is supposed to be their legally registered business name, the one that they probably have signage for. Moderators simply don't enforce this, and with Map Maker basically gone, the community of moderators is somewhat of a cloak and dagger group now.

I have tried to clean some of these up via submissions, because in spite of agreeing with the points of the article and using mostly Apple Maps for navigation, Google Maps still is better in terms of having a lot of community sourced data and overall place discoverability (along with Yelp, which Apple Maps seems to no longer source data from).

Examples of these business names:

- {name} - {city name} Axe Throwing

- {name} License Agency - (Vehicle/Vessel not drivers license)

- {name} - Lunch Buffet (Friday-Sunday) - {cuisine} Restaurant - {city name}

And many now have:

- {name of a local chain} - {neighborhood or city name}

Some of this is a UX problem or perhaps data architecture problem – in the case of local chains, I imagine many are dealing with people calling in orders and showing up at the wrong place to pick up their order. Google Maps could do a better job showing the neighborhood/locality/"local name" of the area in the search results.

Others are just a lack of consistent moderation.

[CydeWeys]

> {name of a local chain} - {neighborhood or city name}

Wait, what's wrong with this? This is just good practice. It's helpful to be able to, when communicating with someone, unambiguously refer to the exact location, e.g. Westville Chelsea v Westville East v Westville Hudson v Westville Wall Street.

[muricula]

Because on a map it's already implicit in where the pin actually is. You're staring at a pin in Westville Chelsea.

[CydeWeys]

You're not always looking at a map at all times though. If I verbally tell a friend "Let's meet up for lunch at Westville Chelsea", they can then unambiguously locate the exact one later on on their own.

Also, lots of people (especially visitors!) don't know where the neighborhoods actually are. So having the names of the locations in the pins is better than them struggling to figure out exactly which of a series of identically named pins is actually the right one in an area they don't know about.

[iggldiggl]

Problem is the same name is also used for lists of search results – having a neighbourhood name being displayed there can definitively be helpful to distinguish multiple branches of the same company, while also having a higher chance of being at least roughly recognisable to people as compared to specific street names (which is what Google currently displays for POI listings).

[scrollaway]

Yes exactly, if you want to, say, meet at a specific Marriott hotel and put it in directions, this helps disambiguate. Google Maps does a good job of it without, but will still show you completely different ones if you don’t have the unique-ish name.

[CydeWeys]

Every branch of a hotel chain should have a unique name, at least per city. Way too many mistakes get made otherwise.

[konspence]

I already know where I’m looking.

And the map TOS state it should be the business name.

I pointed this out as a UX problem, which it is.

[seb1204]

Business names have all this useless PTY LTD and not necessarily the differentiator that is required. E.g. two fast food chain places operated by the same franchise holder but are located on opposite sides of the highway. For me as map use I am interested in identifying the one on the lane Northbound in the list of search results while driving.

[mschuster91]

> I already know where I’m looking.

You do, because you're native to the area. The person you're talking to, possibly not.

[graftak]

This would be solved by dividing it up on 2 distinct fields, a business name field and a title field. Then a business can put their SEO crap in the title field and google maps can decide how much of the info to display when.

Of course moderation would still be a thing, perhaps a character limit of 25 for the name should be enforced unless they can demonstrate why that is too little.

Coincidently the separate fields is how Apple Maps does it, although their title field appears made up of a category list item, presumably to keep it consistent and free of spam.

[technothrasher]

> {name of a local chain} - {neighborhood or city name}

What I'm starting to see a lot which is frustrating is:

{name of completely not local chain} - {neighborhood or city name}

Such as "Local Town Plumbing" with a national telephone number to some plumber referral service and will be located where there is an empty field or other non-business.

[THENATHE]

All of those suck except the last example, which is actually extremely useful and helpful to users

[oidar]

I was disappointed that apple took yelp stuff away from apple maps as well. For restaurants though, clicking on the "menu" link for restaurants takes me to the yelp page for that restaurant.

[dmd]

https://sports.yahoo.com/nyc-restaurant-named-thai-food-2027...

[asah]

Obligatory business listing: https://goo.gl/maps/nRH1hnjAkJKfpLcu8 (yes, this is real and apparently pretty decent) (and yes, the name went viral which doubled the marketing win)