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Google has forgotten the plot. A quick tangent story follows: I attempted to add a Tesla Supercharger as it went live to Google Maps. I was the very first to pa

• chrisandchris 17d ago
  I tried to remove a not-anoymore-existing company I had a business profile before from Google Maps. I was close to giving up, it's such a complicated process that is fully intransparent. Kudos for you for trying 4 times.
  • nkrisc 17d ago
    The lesson here is: don’t do free work for corporations.
    • wat10000 17d ago
      I don't even fill out surveys anymore for the most part, unless it gets me a discount or something.
      • nkrisc 16d ago
        Cold hard cash. If they want my input, they can pay me for my time. If it’s a small or local business that I like patronizing then I might do something small for them out of generosity and a desire to see them succeed in place of some large chain or corpo.
• Someone1234 17d ago
  I've found that if you attach any pictures at all: rejected. So what I've taken to doing is adding the business without photos (almost always accepted), and then trying to attach the photos later after that goes live (mostly works). But I agree, their process is completely broken, and I doubt they have any incentive to fix it.
  • trainingonme 17d ago
    Question here then, is when will we see a competitor enter the market who both cares about getting it right and is actually able to compete with google maps
    • 0xbrayo 17d ago
      Apple Maps maybe?
      • mfro 17d ago
        Apple Maps is much better in my experience. I've never had an update rejected.
        • mig39 17d ago
          I've sent in corrections to Apple Maps in Portugal (shopping mall is 1km away from the location on Apple Maps) and Canada (speed camera does not exist). Both were taken care of within a couple of days.
        • tonyedgecombe 17d ago
          It took them two years to update my address.
        • pmul 17d ago
          but then again Apple Maps seems (certainly here in London) to be absolutely full of geofraud entries and out of date slop, such as small businesses with linked websites that have been shuttered for years, and strange businesses located in the middle of playing fields, parks and lakes.
• Vinnl 17d ago
  FWIW, editing OpenStreetMap is very straightforward*, and with that, you're actually contributing to an open data set that everyone is allowed to use, rather than just propping up Google. (To be fair, on a laptop - I'm sure Google Maps is more straightforward on a phone. But for someone already prepared to invest this much effort, editing OSM should be well within range. And if you just enjoy contributing to maps, for a phone I can highly recommend https://streetcomplete.app https://streetcomplete.app.)
  • spwa4 17d ago
    Wasn't making street plans from satellite pictures ruled transformative? So if you get an AI to make street plans from Google maps, satellite layer, you're not violating copyright are you?
    • deleted 17d ago
      [deleted]
    • mtmail 17d ago
      Bing Maps allows the OpenStreetMap community to trace from aerial_imagery https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bing_Maps#Aerial_imagery https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bing_Maps#Aerial_imagery Google doesn't. How much a tool helps somebody to draw the actual roads varies by editor software used, some have plugins. Using AI in bulk isn't allowed afaik.
    • LoganDark 17d ago
      If you obtain the satellite images directly from Google Maps, you can still have problems because you might not have permission to use the data. That's not copyright though.
      • Chris2048 17d ago
        > you might not have permission to use the data Isn't it fair use, like training data?
• embedding-shape 17d ago
  Had similar experience trying to add a restaurant to Google Maps, our own even. First time, rejected because didn't exist, it did. Second time, they say they sent a letter, and they see that someone received it, no one did. We wait a month, they say they sent another letter, we wait another month. Nothing, and now they stopped replying too. Wait another month, suddenly the restauarant magically exists on Google Maps, with the wrong images, wrong address, wrong open times, but the pin is the right place at least, so I guess that's cool. Took another month or two to force through all the corrections too. This was made 2-3 years ago, probably worse today. Absolutely horrific experience, and they have zero motivation to fix it, because people like us still want to be on Google Maps, especially if you're not in a super good location, so people can actually find you.
  • nhecker 17d ago
    Another path may be to add the business to OpenStreetMap first; I get the impression that Google will scrape changes to OSM and add them to it's dataset. (I've seen several small changes I've made only to OSM get propagated to GMaps a few weeks later. Possibly it's a coincidence, but when the features are exactly the same shape as the ones I drew in OSM, I get suspicious.)
• saghm 17d ago
  I've stopped believing in the accuracy of Google maps after my experience at my last apartment. The ground floor of my building was a deli with an address like 123 4th Ave, and the entrance to the deli was basically facing the corner itself rather than either side of the cross street, and my apartment's address (using the placeholder above as a reference) was 123 4th Ave Apt. 2R. All of the apartments had a separate entrance than the deli that was further down the block past the deli on 4th Ave. The problem was that the cross street (let's call it 5th Street) also had an building with the same number two doors down, and for whatever reason, Google Maps put the address marker for the entirety of 123 4th Ave on 5th Street, and even more annoyingly, they showed the way of getting to my apartment as going into the deli's entrance first, which made no sense because there is absolutely no way to get to the apartments from inside the deli without either going outside or I guess teleporting through the ceiling. When trying to get something delivered to my apartment, the delivery people would often look at Google Maps, see the marker on 5th Street, look for the 123 marker, and then go and ring the bell for 123 5th Street instead of actually going onto 4th Ave and ringing our bell. I tried to contact Google Maps to get this addressed (pun intended), but I was told that they did not have a way to have separate entrances for different parts of the same address, and they told me to get a new separate address from the city. I responded that the city of New York would probably not issue a new address for a building I didn't own and that they could solve the problem by just moving the pin over to the 4th Ave side of the corner instead of the 5th Street side since the entrance pointed out diagonally and no one would have trouble finding it still if they did that. I never got a response, and all of my attempts to submit a correction directly got ignored.
  • madamelic 17d ago
    When I lived in Jersey City, I committed the crime of living at a 1/2 address. Literally nothing could get delivered to me if they used a Google Maps address bar. My address just didn't exist at all to that search bar. It could be found on maps, just not on that little search bar widget. I ended up just putting my neighbors address and either intercepting delivery drivers or putting in the notes that I was at the half address next door. Moral of the story: check your potential address BEFORE you move in
• mavamaarten 17d ago
  Another thing they apparently do is let business owners (e.g. hotels) remove negative reviews because they're "defamatory". I had a very factual 3-star review on a hotel that was supposedly very quiet, but was super noisy and the AC was not working. And there was literally nobody at the reception at the time of check-out and nobody picked up the phone either. All in all, nothing serious, but worth a review. Purely factual stuff, nothing bad-mouthed, just my experience and three stars. A few months later the review was removed because it was "defamatory". I was able to get it reinstated by sending them proof of payment to the hotel and proof that I was there. A few months later, it was removed again! That same dance was repeated six times..... What a weird system.
  • cube00 17d ago
    I'm surprised you knew it was removed. All my negative reviews appear visible to me when logged in and disappear when logged out. Only sure fire way I've found is to leave a two star review with no body. One star without a body is also shadowbanned for me.
    • mavamaarten 17d ago
      Yeah they sent an official looking mail saying that someone took action against my review and that it was therefore removed.
  • SoftTalker 17d ago
    Yet another example of how the incentives work when the platform makes its money with ad revenue. The hotel pays Google for ads and gets favorable search results. If Google then hosts a negative review, the hotel might be less inclined to advertise there. So, only positive reviews get published. The reviewer isn't contributing to Google's revenue at all, so his honest review is only worth something if it makes the advertisers happy.
    • autoexec 17d ago
      > The reviewer isn't contributing to Google's revenue at all, In theory, good reviews drive traffic to Google because people come to trust it as a dependable source of important information. In reality, Google is big enough that they don't have to care. They figure that people will keep using Google no matter how many times Google lies to you. Seems like they're right because their AI overviews lie constantly. https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/04/analysis-finds-google-ai-overviews-is-wrong-10-percent-of-the-time/ https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/04/analysis-finds-google...
• qingcharles 17d ago
  Friend owns a construction company. Been at same address for seven years. Suddenly their Google Business Page not working right. Google says to delete it and reverify, only solution to try. Four times my friend had to take a video: you have to start by standing on the street on the nearest intersection, film all the street signs around you to prove your location, then he had to walk down the street, show the gate with the business name on it, the vehicles with the business name on them, open the front door with the business name on it, give them a tour of the working office and show them invoices and bank statements laid out on the desk with their logo etc on it. Three times they came back and said it wasn't enough to verify. At the same time you can go on swapd and buy GBP verification for $500 and have it verified in an hour by someone who fakes the entire thing.
  • cube00 17d ago
    You can bet those videos have been fed into their training.
• thesuitonym 17d ago
  I'm surprised you tried so many times to do Google's job for them.
• lern_too_spel 17d ago
  Did you add a website like https://www.tesla.com/findus?location=daegususeongsupercharger https://www.tesla.com/findus?location=daegususeongsupercharg...? It's hard to reject an edit if you have confirmation from the owner.
• sixtiethutopia 17d ago
  If we're sharing problems contributing to google maps: I tried submitting a correction to google maps for the first time a few months back. A cafe was listed in the wrong location by about 100m. Very confusingly putting it on the other side of the station it's in front of in a different building. I submitted the correct location and it said the change required manual review. Then a few days later I got an email that the change has been accepted. But opening google maps it was still in the same wrong location, and it's still wrong now.
  • doublepg23 17d ago
    I'm just sad they never sent me the Google Maps socks :-(
• SteveGerencser 17d ago
  And it's still 100x easier than trying to add your own business or set up a Google Business Profile. Shoot a video from outside showing the buildings around you, show the address and permanent signage on the building (they don't always accept door signs), unlock the door to show that you own the space, then show the interior of the space with things like signage, letterhead, business cards, etc. Then hope that the video was 'good enough' to get a listing. And heaven help you if you choose to get an office on an upper floor where an elevator ride is required, or you get a space in a building that also has/had a co-working space in it.
• drew870mitchell 17d ago
  Yeah, a while back Google Maps sent out a cheerful "here's all you've contributed" email and i clicked through and found my complete history. It was a graveyard of rejected edits for things like closed streets, wrong business hours, and spam listings (IDK the payoff for the spammers but there's an ongoing cluster of fake hotels and businesses near my old apartment). Seeing the total record of incorrect stuff that i had fruitlessly spent my own spare moments to fix convinced me to quit doing any free work for Google.
  • Good4boothee 16d ago
    Endless stream of "Your review was removed - place was closed down" is a interesting reward for reviewing places. I still wonder how can a beach just stop existing.
• ornornor 17d ago
  Same for business reviews. I’ve given up because mine are always rejected. No reason given, no appeal possible. It’s almost as if I was shadowbanned. So I don’t leave reviews anymore and wonder how many reviews are black holed. Or even how useful the reviews are because the fake reviews are rampant.
• duxup 17d ago
  Meanwhile random griefer types work the Google system just fine. For whatever reason some randos altering business hours and posting mass quantities of weird maps reviews, closed updates stay up. Meanwhile on YouTube when I’m not getting questionable medical drugs and gadgets advertised at me on YouTube… I’ll also get what seems like just porn. I got one that I’m pretty sure was heavily hinting at “find under age girls”… I shit you not. The pic was disturbing. My YouTube history, cats and coding music…. I don’t get it.
  • jamesfinlayson 16d ago
    CGNAT'ed IP address? I get occasional CloudFlare blocks at home from some hobby-related websites I visit maybe once a week, and I know that no one else in my house is doing anything to hit rate limits.
• blacksmith_tb 16d ago
  I have had zero luck trying to get gMaps updated to remove an imaginary address they added for my garage. I might as well just put up extra address numbers and another mailbox.
• Lammy 16d ago
  Why would you help build Google's place-database moat for them for free?
  • alt227 16d ago
    Exactly. I hate the fact they gamified answering questions on Google maps to help keep their system updated for free.
• blitzar 16d ago
  ??? must have a better social credit score than 1970-01-01
• GetSMS 16d ago
  [dead]
• Aditya_0315 16d ago
  The same thing happened when we tried to set up my brother’s car rental business on Google Maps. We gave them the website, the domain, the business number, and even the business address, but somehow, it managed to show an already-defunct business from somewhere else. Even after we complained, it didn’t fix the problem.
• fred_is_fred 15d ago
  Why are you doing work for them for free - and at that level of annoyance no less?