While traveling some tools are essential for the journey, and Google Maps is one of them. Whether I’m traveling for business purposes or personal leisure, Google Maps is always a top priority. While most of us use it for its outstanding navigation, for me it is a savior whenever I’m stuck in traffic jams or traveling unknown roads of strange places. Moreover, it provides other options such as sharing photos, posting reviews, and personalized suggestions for the places you have been to or places you are about to visit.
It also helps you determine the distance between two places. As for my favorite feature, I can say that allowing contributors around the world to share their stories and their perspective of places is amazing. Plus, it gives us power to add places, update information, and ask questions, so that the visiting individuals get to know a certain place better before visiting.
Since I have traveled to many areas in my city, and I have been using Google Maps since 2014, I have noticed there are certain aspects to adding places to Google Maps which I am sharing here. These all are based on my experience, observation, and traveling history. I am doing this with the hope that it will help you to make Google Maps a better community platform and enhance user experience. Now, let’s begin.
Things you have to keep in mind before adding any missing location.- Adding new places to Google Maps is amazing; however, sometimes you can end up adding duplicate places, which is not only confusing but also add duplicate entries on the map, and chances are that your request will be resting in the PENDING list or be marked as NOT APPLIED. So, to avoid such headaches, look out for the “Possible Match Nearby” suggestion, as these are suggested by Google Maps itself.
- Another useful feature that should be utilized is to make work of “Add Label” or “Add to contact” instead of adding a new place every time. Adding Label (as aunts home) helps you to track and navigate marked places of your choice whenever you are revisiting a place. It also helps you to measure and find every possible route to the destination.
- Check if the place you are adding is marked as “Temporarily closed”, in that case you can mark it as “re-open”, “permanently closed”, or any mentioned things and earn the same amount of points as adding a new place.
Some DO and DON’Ts
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Do NOT add places on a Sunday or Gazetted Holiday. Because 9 out of 10 times I did this, my request simply ended up on the pending or not applied list.
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Adding roads is quite a lengthy process, and it needs more attention (in developed areas). If you look at my profile you will see that I’ve only been able to add 1 road so far. So, it is hard to find but with consistent observation you will definitely find one.
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If you’re looking to make a bigger impact with the places that you are adding, try the developing areas because metro cities already have defined maps and reviews. Trust me, you will find more places to add in the developing areas as compared to developed areas including the roads.
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Google Maps enables you to search a location in many ways. You can look up a place with its name, with longitude-latitude, and supported formats plus Code. There are many ways.
But why I’m telling this, there is a trick associated with that.
Suppose, during your last trip you have clicked some photos , but as weeks went down unfortunately you have forgotten the exact location where you took that photo or video & without that particular location data adding new location might be a random guess. right?
So here comes GEOTAG, the savior
whenever you click a photo try to keep your GPS enabled. What Geotag does is that it saves your location (latitude & longitude) along your photo. I personally used it many times. This not only helps to save time but I move freely just taking photos without worrying & later on add places based on location I get from from my photo details panel .
GEOTAG location information can be seen in any gallery or photo viewer app, likewise as in screenshot
Thats all these are few things taken care of before adding, Let’s start adding
Checklist for adding places on gmap
First and foremost, the more details you have to add in the form while adding the more chances your request will be accepted likewise But there is a secret sauce of the most important things I have found & works mostly are
- Adding sign board photo (Sign board actually helps determine if a place with this name exists)
- Adding 30 sec. Video of that place (a single combination of one photo & one video works perfectly)
- Proper Name with respected category (from drop down menu).
These are most critical details so its worthy to takes yours time to get some details & then fill it
- Review & rating
- Add website
- & Last add Opening dates in case of restaurant & other amenities
NOTE : Speaking about the category, there are some categories I have observed that have greater chances of approval than others. For me historical landmarks, medical centers, Grocery/Daily used things, Educational institutes have higher chances & my interpretation would be because that is where most humanity lies & maybe google’s algorithm gave it more preference due to the situations going around the world.
BONUS POINTS:
360 degree photography always got first priority on the mobile devices, so don’t forget to capture them also while you exploring
