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>I’ve done the whole google maps support thing but no response and deaf ears. You've used the suggest a change feature within Maps? I've done that several time

>I’ve done the whole google maps support thing but no response and deaf ears. You've used the suggest a change feature within Maps? I've done that several times and I think it always worked for me. Full disclosure I work at Google, not on Maps, and I always did the suggest a change with my personal account.

SECProto 6y ago
> You've used the suggest a change feature within Maps? I've done that several times and I think it always worked for me. I've had a road that is mis-named near me. I've used the "suggest a change" feature multiple times, but have never gotten a response other than the automated "it'll be reviewed". Road is still mis-named. Other changes i've suggested have gone through in hours.
- visarga 6y ago
  Probably have to submit it to OSM and wait until Google loads their data into GMaps. /s
  - dan-robertson 6y ago
    I think google don’t use OSM data.
    - emteycz 6y ago
      Well and yet this is what I did and it worked, after around a year of waiting.
      - Freak_NL 6y ago
        It is possible that whoever Google has hired for the local edits uses OSM as a reference in response to feedback received via Google Maps. Not explicitly of course, because this is strictly forbidden, both ways, due to license incompatibility. For OpenStreetMap this is a very important point, because well-meaning novice mappers copying streets or points-of-interest directly from a proprietary map put the project at risk of litigation. Google will likely have such a strong rule in their own internal documentation as well. OSM strongly discourages the mapping of trap streets — fake streets that only exist on your map for unscrupulous competition to copy so you know that they did so — but it's possible that some mappers do put these on the map. I don't think one of the big proprietary maps has ever been caught copying one of these though.
        sabas_ge 6y ago
        Not trap streets but details (like small ponds in private areas) and misspellings were reportedly taken ispiration from over the years... :-)
      - redis_mlc 6y ago
        I can confirm that Google appears to import data from OSM. I added a placemark in OSM in the middle of Bali, Indonesia for an Internet cafe a few years ago, and it's currently also in Google Maps. (The cafe has since been closed for a few years.) What's interesting is that's why I added it to OSM - to get picked up by Google Maps. :) What's even more interesting is that when I told people in SV that I was doing that, they told me since it was a copyright violation, Google Maps wouldn't do that. :) :)
  - SECProto 6y ago
    OSM uses a different, also incorrect, name for the road. At least the name OSM uses was correct at one point (about a decade ago - also when that feature was last edited).
    - leokennis 6y ago
      At least on OSM you can change it yourself.
      - SECProto 6y ago
        Indeed. I hesitate to change it manually though, as I know the (former) name of the road was done as part of a 911 upgrade in the early-mid 00's, and a lot of similarly semi-private roads renamed a few years after that. So OSM got their data from some official source a decade ago, and a number of roads throughout the locality are equally messed up by the lack of updates.
- hrktb 6y ago
  I’ve had changes go through, but sometimes in a monkey’s paw way. I ask the labelling of a school on the map, specifying the name and providing the home town site as proof (a page listing all schools with their adresses and picture), and two days later it was labelled as “<Name of the town> school” completely ignoring the provided info and making the spot misleading. Requests for correction a few months apart didn’t do anything at this point. So I can vouch for the process sometimes working, and I have nothing to do with Google. Now, why, when and how it works is a complete mystery.
  - outadoc 6y ago
    Afaik, the naming of locations is peer-reviewed automatically and by Google Maps users (they have the Local Guide program for this), but actual road changes are a different process.
  - rosseloh 6y ago
    > Now, why, when and how it works is a complete mystery. Even when you're dealing with their non-public products! Every holiday, Google reminds me I need to check the holiday hours for our business on the Google My Business page. So I do. Every time, despite being the only authorized user on this page and despite the changes I make being nothing strange (things like being closed on christmas, and not to mention their system asked me to check it)......it sits there saying "pending review" for a week or more. I don't really know what to think about it when they don't trust the business page's actual manager to get the info correct.
- Reason077 6y ago
  > "I've had a road that is mis-named near me. I've used the "suggest a change" feature multiple times, but have never gotten a response other than the automated "it'll be reviewed". Road is still mis-named." I wonder if it would be easier to just change the street signs rather than convince Google to make the correction.
  - Breza 6y ago
    That sounds like something Douglas Adams would suggest
    - Reason077 6y ago
      There is some precedent. Entire countries have had to change their name (or at least, sparked serious debate about it) because of Google: https://www.wsj.com/articles/czech-prime-minister-wants-to-know-who-changed-his-countrys-name-11581622528 https://www.wsj.com/articles/czech-prime-minister-wants-to-k...
Bjartr 6y ago
You've been downvoted, but I think you have a point. Maps support & "suggest a change" are two different sets of ears, and while one may be deaf to this problem, the other may be more responsive.
- andi999 6y ago
  Normal companies forward wrongly addressed requests to the correct department.
  - Daho0n 6y ago
    I know it is trendy to bash Google but if you get millions of support requests it would be abnormal to forward support emails for something that has a very clear built-in function right in the product. It isn't a problem with Google that they don't reply to mail for something like this. It is a clear user error.
    - prepend 6y ago
      I disagree. The whole cool part of Google is organizing data and writing good algorithms. Even if they get a million misdirected suggestions a day, they are probably one of the best organizations in the world to figure out how to redirect correctly.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    Only companies with very few users.
amerkhalid 6y ago
Another data point, and I don't work at Google. I had to correct a name of one road near us. I think it took only a week or so.
flatline 6y ago
I did this for the Railroad Museum in Baltimore, years ago, where Google Maps deposited you in a very poor part of the city on the wrong side of the property. It took about two years before I got a follow-up email and the listing updated.
marc3842h 6y ago
Near me Google maps displays a road that has been removed in 2008. When I found that out earlier last year, I used exactly this feature to suggest a removal. As of now, the road is still on Google Maps and the only response I've ever gotten was the automated email reply.
- Daho0n 6y ago
  As a counter anecdote I marked a road as changed (one end was closed off) and it was fixed in a few days. I have made quite a number of edits to Maps so to me this is not at all what I have experienced. Maybe Google is different (IE. worse)) in the US than Scandinavia.
  - benhurmarcel 6y ago
    It's very variable for each edit. I've sent about 20 edits over time, all in western Europe; some were accepted rapidly, some were rejected for some reason, some are still stuck in review after months or years. Even in the same area. A neighborhood name was added, but the street name change in that same neighborhood wasn't.
Hydraulix989 6y ago
If Google is anything like other companies, internal employees' own support requests are prioritized, even on external-facing channels.
- Thorrez 6y ago
  That would require you to create some association between your personal and work account right? I don't remember doing that. I guess they could match on first name and last name equality, but that sounds like a bad idea due to name collisions and impersonation.
  - thraway12 6y ago
    >"That would require you to create some association between your personal and work account right?" Obtuse af. Is this default assumption that the user is the one who has to "create" associations in the company's systems based on anything? The big tech cos have been social mapping since before 2012 and they undoubtedly register when two accounts use the same IP.
    - Thorrez 6y ago
      So if I work from a coffeeshop all the other coffeeshop patrons would be considered Google employees? Creating a system to secretly map my work account and my personal account in order to prioritize my Maps suggestions seems like a huge amount of work for no benefit whatsoever.
      - maratc 6y ago
        This could be a little more intelligent. E.g. a coffeeshop has a constant stream of accounts on its IP that appear only once or twice. So it might be considered "a public place". So no association is done over accounts arriving from that IP. Your home, OTOH, might have only two accounts on its IP for years, so the association here is stronger. A cookie shared between two accounts is even a stronger indication, as a person used the same browser to log in with both. The system might not be created "to prioritize Maps suggestions" only and has multiple benefits in other places. Most obvious of these is to prevent people banned from the service to come back with a different account. (I don't work at G and never did, but worked at another place where we linked accounts.)
TheRealSteel 6y ago
I've had the exact same problem, reported it, and been ignored. Not all of us work at Google.
- PicassoCTs 6y ago
  The trick is to add keywords that make the issue "weight" more heavy. Suggest in your request for change, that this might open up google to liability
  - nradov 6y ago
    Is there any evidence that works? In general Google has no liability for publishing incorrect information.
jlangenauer 6y ago
It shouldn't be up to people to have to spend time and money to correct Google's errors, and to stop Google inconviencing them. Somehow, it has become completely accepted for Google/FB/et al to make profits while shifting costs and externalities onto society. Why do we allow these tech giants to treat us so disgracefully?
- thret 6y ago
  Do you even remember what it was like trying to find your way around a foreign city before google maps? They mapped the world and provided it as a service for free.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Yes, I used services like Map24.
  - chridou 6y ago
    I do. I remember adding a lot of buffer time just in case I wouldn't be able to find my way. It is much more convenient now with G-Maps and other providers. I also remember how expensive the maps for the early navigation systems were and how bad they were.
  - scelerat 6y ago
    I remember. You had to plan in advance and communicate with others.
  - chasd00 6y ago
    you stopped at a gas station and bought a mapsco.
    - nradov 6y ago
      Paper maps were often only marginally useful due to lack of proper street signs or building numbers, especially at night or in bad weather.
  - garaetjjte 6y ago
chx 6y ago
There are two towns in rural Hungary which are reasonably well connected: you need to take a so called secondary main road then after a short time turn to another and again in a short time there you are -- but that's not a direct route even if it's fast. The direct route is an unpaved road cutting across the countryside near two tiny villages if you can call that a "road": more than half of the year it is an unpassable mud trap. The locals regularly need to use their tractors to get the hapless Google Map followers out of it. It's so ridiculous it became a national sensation.
lucideer 6y ago
> You've used the suggest a change feature within Maps? I've done that several times and I think it always worked for me. My home address is wrong on Google Maps. It's correct on our national postal services' postcode system, but that only covers public post: most private couriers use Google for some reason. As do Uber/delivery drivers/taxis/etc. I live in an urban centre (Dublin, home of Google's EU HQ) so it's not some obscure rural farm. I've used their suggest a change feature within Maps pretty much every month since I've lived here and even received automated responses telling me the suggestion has been "processed" or similar. No change to the map though.
slickrick216 6y ago
Correct yeah that one. It got rejected 3 times and has now been under review for a long period. I think it’s something to do with when you type in the name of the area it marks it on the driveway. So people looking for the village of the same name as the area get directed there.

SECProto 6y ago

> You've used the suggest a change feature within Maps? I've done that several times and I think it always worked for me. I've had a road that is mis-named near me. I've used the "suggest a change" feature multiple times, but have never gotten a response other than the automated "it'll be reviewed". Road is still mis-named. Other changes i've suggested have gone through in hours.

visarga 6y ago
Probably have to submit it to OSM and wait until Google loads their data into GMaps. /s
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  I think google don’t use OSM data.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    Well and yet this is what I did and it worked, after around a year of waiting.
    - Freak_NL 6y ago
      It is possible that whoever Google has hired for the local edits uses OSM as a reference in response to feedback received via Google Maps. Not explicitly of course, because this is strictly forbidden, both ways, due to license incompatibility. For OpenStreetMap this is a very important point, because well-meaning novice mappers copying streets or points-of-interest directly from a proprietary map put the project at risk of litigation. Google will likely have such a strong rule in their own internal documentation as well. OSM strongly discourages the mapping of trap streets — fake streets that only exist on your map for unscrupulous competition to copy so you know that they did so — but it's possible that some mappers do put these on the map. I don't think one of the big proprietary maps has ever been caught copying one of these though.
      - sabas_ge 6y ago
        Not trap streets but details (like small ponds in private areas) and misspellings were reportedly taken ispiration from over the years... :-)
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      I can confirm that Google appears to import data from OSM. I added a placemark in OSM in the middle of Bali, Indonesia for an Internet cafe a few years ago, and it's currently also in Google Maps. (The cafe has since been closed for a few years.) What's interesting is that's why I added it to OSM - to get picked up by Google Maps. :) What's even more interesting is that when I told people in SV that I was doing that, they told me since it was a copyright violation, Google Maps wouldn't do that. :) :)
- SECProto 6y ago
  OSM uses a different, also incorrect, name for the road. At least the name OSM uses was correct at one point (about a decade ago - also when that feature was last edited).
  - leokennis 6y ago
    At least on OSM you can change it yourself.
    - SECProto 6y ago
      Indeed. I hesitate to change it manually though, as I know the (former) name of the road was done as part of a 911 upgrade in the early-mid 00's, and a lot of similarly semi-private roads renamed a few years after that. So OSM got their data from some official source a decade ago, and a number of roads throughout the locality are equally messed up by the lack of updates.
hrktb 6y ago
I’ve had changes go through, but sometimes in a monkey’s paw way. I ask the labelling of a school on the map, specifying the name and providing the home town site as proof (a page listing all schools with their adresses and picture), and two days later it was labelled as “<Name of the town> school” completely ignoring the provided info and making the spot misleading. Requests for correction a few months apart didn’t do anything at this point. So I can vouch for the process sometimes working, and I have nothing to do with Google. Now, why, when and how it works is a complete mystery.
- outadoc 6y ago
  Afaik, the naming of locations is peer-reviewed automatically and by Google Maps users (they have the Local Guide program for this), but actual road changes are a different process.
- rosseloh 6y ago
  > Now, why, when and how it works is a complete mystery. Even when you're dealing with their non-public products! Every holiday, Google reminds me I need to check the holiday hours for our business on the Google My Business page. So I do. Every time, despite being the only authorized user on this page and despite the changes I make being nothing strange (things like being closed on christmas, and not to mention their system asked me to check it)......it sits there saying "pending review" for a week or more. I don't really know what to think about it when they don't trust the business page's actual manager to get the info correct.
Reason077 6y ago
> "I've had a road that is mis-named near me. I've used the "suggest a change" feature multiple times, but have never gotten a response other than the automated "it'll be reviewed". Road is still mis-named." I wonder if it would be easier to just change the street signs rather than convince Google to make the correction.
- Breza 6y ago
  That sounds like something Douglas Adams would suggest
  - Reason077 6y ago
    There is some precedent. Entire countries have had to change their name (or at least, sparked serious debate about it) because of Google: https://www.wsj.com/articles/czech-prime-minister-wants-to-know-who-changed-his-countrys-name-11581622528 https://www.wsj.com/articles/czech-prime-minister-wants-to-k...

Bjartr 6y ago

You've been downvoted, but I think you have a point. Maps support & "suggest a change" are two different sets of ears, and while one may be deaf to this problem, the other may be more responsive.

andi999 6y ago
Normal companies forward wrongly addressed requests to the correct department.
- Daho0n 6y ago
  I know it is trendy to bash Google but if you get millions of support requests it would be abnormal to forward support emails for something that has a very clear built-in function right in the product. It isn't a problem with Google that they don't reply to mail for something like this. It is a clear user error.
  - prepend 6y ago
    I disagree. The whole cool part of Google is organizing data and writing good algorithms. Even if they get a million misdirected suggestions a day, they are probably one of the best organizations in the world to figure out how to redirect correctly.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Only companies with very few users.

amerkhalid 6y ago

Another data point, and I don't work at Google. I had to correct a name of one road near us. I think it took only a week or so.

flatline 6y ago

I did this for the Railroad Museum in Baltimore, years ago, where Google Maps deposited you in a very poor part of the city on the wrong side of the property. It took about two years before I got a follow-up email and the listing updated.

marc3842h 6y ago

Near me Google maps displays a road that has been removed in 2008. When I found that out earlier last year, I used exactly this feature to suggest a removal. As of now, the road is still on Google Maps and the only response I've ever gotten was the automated email reply.

Daho0n 6y ago
As a counter anecdote I marked a road as changed (one end was closed off) and it was fixed in a few days. I have made quite a number of edits to Maps so to me this is not at all what I have experienced. Maybe Google is different (IE. worse)) in the US than Scandinavia.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  It's very variable for each edit. I've sent about 20 edits over time, all in western Europe; some were accepted rapidly, some were rejected for some reason, some are still stuck in review after months or years. Even in the same area. A neighborhood name was added, but the street name change in that same neighborhood wasn't.

Hydraulix989 6y ago

If Google is anything like other companies, internal employees' own support requests are prioritized, even on external-facing channels.

Thorrez 6y ago
That would require you to create some association between your personal and work account right? I don't remember doing that. I guess they could match on first name and last name equality, but that sounds like a bad idea due to name collisions and impersonation.
- thraway12 6y ago
  >"That would require you to create some association between your personal and work account right?" Obtuse af. Is this default assumption that the user is the one who has to "create" associations in the company's systems based on anything? The big tech cos have been social mapping since before 2012 and they undoubtedly register when two accounts use the same IP.
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    So if I work from a coffeeshop all the other coffeeshop patrons would be considered Google employees? Creating a system to secretly map my work account and my personal account in order to prioritize my Maps suggestions seems like a huge amount of work for no benefit whatsoever.
    - maratc 6y ago
      This could be a little more intelligent. E.g. a coffeeshop has a constant stream of accounts on its IP that appear only once or twice. So it might be considered "a public place". So no association is done over accounts arriving from that IP. Your home, OTOH, might have only two accounts on its IP for years, so the association here is stronger. A cookie shared between two accounts is even a stronger indication, as a person used the same browser to log in with both. The system might not be created "to prioritize Maps suggestions" only and has multiple benefits in other places. Most obvious of these is to prevent people banned from the service to come back with a different account. (I don't work at G and never did, but worked at another place where we linked accounts.)

TheRealSteel 6y ago

I've had the exact same problem, reported it, and been ignored. Not all of us work at Google.

PicassoCTs 6y ago
The trick is to add keywords that make the issue "weight" more heavy. Suggest in your request for change, that this might open up google to liability
- nradov 6y ago
  Is there any evidence that works? In general Google has no liability for publishing incorrect information.

jlangenauer 6y ago

It shouldn't be up to people to have to spend time and money to correct Google's errors, and to stop Google inconviencing them. Somehow, it has become completely accepted for Google/FB/et al to make profits while shifting costs and externalities onto society. Why do we allow these tech giants to treat us so disgracefully?

thret 6y ago
Do you even remember what it was like trying to find your way around a foreign city before google maps? They mapped the world and provided it as a service for free.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Yes, I used services like Map24.
- chridou 6y ago
  I do. I remember adding a lot of buffer time just in case I wouldn't be able to find my way. It is much more convenient now with G-Maps and other providers. I also remember how expensive the maps for the early navigation systems were and how bad they were.
- scelerat 6y ago
  I remember. You had to plan in advance and communicate with others.
- chasd00 6y ago
  you stopped at a gas station and bought a mapsco.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Paper maps were often only marginally useful due to lack of proper street signs or building numbers, especially at night or in bad weather.
- garaetjjte 6y ago

chx 6y ago

There are two towns in rural Hungary which are reasonably well connected: you need to take a so called secondary main road then after a short time turn to another and again in a short time there you are -- but that's not a direct route even if it's fast. The direct route is an unpaved road cutting across the countryside near two tiny villages if you can call that a "road": more than half of the year it is an unpassable mud trap. The locals regularly need to use their tractors to get the hapless Google Map followers out of it. It's so ridiculous it became a national sensation.

lucideer 6y ago

> You've used the suggest a change feature within Maps? I've done that several times and I think it always worked for me. My home address is wrong on Google Maps. It's correct on our national postal services' postcode system, but that only covers public post: most private couriers use Google for some reason. As do Uber/delivery drivers/taxis/etc. I live in an urban centre (Dublin, home of Google's EU HQ) so it's not some obscure rural farm. I've used their suggest a change feature within Maps pretty much every month since I've lived here and even received automated responses telling me the suggestion has been "processed" or similar. No change to the map though.

slickrick216 6y ago

Correct yeah that one. It got rejected 3 times and has now been under review for a long period. I think it’s something to do with when you type in the name of the area it marks it on the driveway. So people looking for the village of the same name as the area get directed there.