Now that I got your attention: Ahoy, Mateys!
I am Sandeep Parekh, level 9 local guide in Melbourne, Australia. Today I would like to share what my favorite activity is in Google Maps. And yes, You guessed right, it’s “Finding missing information”. And it’s just like finding missing treasure.
Why would I or anyone do it?
Well, sometimes the place you are trying to visit from maps doesn’t exists in real life. The business hours could be listed inaccurately. Or you would like more information about the Business but there is no website listed. And often you want to check out the photos of the places before you visit but there aren’t any uploaded. Does this sound familiar? Well, you are not the only one. Everyone using Google maps must have thought once that all the information for the place would be up to date and accurate. I have been in these kind of situations many times, specially when I am traveling. Once I drove over 50km to visit a scenic spot only to realize that it closes early than what maps said. The responsibility to keep maps listings up to date falls to local guides like us for their local area.
Here what I do to keep my local area in maps up to date as a local guide:
1. Adopt a place
Many of the places in Google maps do not have owners and they don’t get updated once added. If you know a place like this in your local area, you can adopt them. Whenever, you are near the place, check to see if you can add any missing information. The place could be a big shopping mall or a small restaurant. I have adopted a Shopping mall close to where I live and I try to update any missing information for the places in the mall when I am shopping.
2. Do it when you can
Are you waiting for a friend at a restaurant? Is your train late? Are you waiting in line at a barber/salon or for a bus at the station? You can use this time to update that place in maps if it’s missing any info.
3. Love Photography?
Take photos of the places you visit. Add them to google maps and don’t forget to caption them. Captioning your photos helps other map users.
I love taking photos. I am an amateur photographer. The first thing I do when I visit a place is to take photos. Later I caption them and add to maps. It helps me get better at photography and at the same time I am contributing to maps. Win-Win.
I have added more than 10,000 photos and have over 41 million views.
Here is my top photo.
4. Use Uncover missing info feature
Did you know Google maps has a feature that lets you find places with missing info on the maps in one go? I use it often when I have some time to spare. You can even filter the places.
You can find the feature in google maps app.
That’s my story. I hope tips I listed here helps other local guides.
I would love to hear more about what you do to make google maps better for everyone?