When hunting for duplicates on Google Maps you can zoom around for a long time without being lucky to spot one. Here is another powerful trick you can use in densely populated business districts, over high-rise buildings, and in areas with many lawyers.
Go visit such a street with lots of businesses, preferably with multi-story buildings. Now open the text-based search bar in Google Maps. Type in the name of the street and add the first house number you want to check for duplicates. Then hit the search button.
On Android look for At this address: Here are listed some of the businesses:
This overview will make it easier for you to spot duplicates. Please always abide by the official rules and respect existing businesses. Your search for duplicates should be based on what you see and can find out while on-site. Also, following links, looking up phone numbers in the local online phone directory and checking pictures can prove helpful.
In the example shown above, there are 4 places at the address I searched for. And Bingo: Number 1 and 3 are referring to the same health food store = duplicates. Since #3 is not claimed and has no reviews or pictures, it is easier to just remove it rather than merging the two.
If in any doubt, do nothing.
When done with one address, you can always do the next one. And the next one…
What I love about it is the simple change of perspective. Instead of searching for places, search for addresses.
Not only does your “trick” reveal potential duplicates, but it could also reveal wrong addresses for legit businesses.
The only “weakness” is we need to keep in mind that Google’s address accuracy is not the same in all areas. Where I live, when you type in the address of a POI, the map pointer jumps to the wrong place most of the time. So when people add a missing place to Maps and only place the map pointer and allow the address to be wrong, this legit business could show up on the (wrong) address that you are investigating, yet the map pointer for this POI is at the right place.
So PLEASE also check where the map pointer jumps to when you browse through the search result when searching by address.
Thanks for your valuable comments, @JeroenM . Just because things are very organized without such problems where I live, it is important to be aware of these variations in data quality.
Also it should be mentioned that the street cleaning trick obviously won’t work if duplicates are not linked to the same address.
So no one trick will catch all duplicates. Mix and match is good.
Thank you once again @MortenCopenhagen - you really are coming up with some awesome tips. I was already able to use this one to detect a duplicate that was otherwise not showing up - an addtional #LGCTM triumph
I have added a link to this tip in the main #LGCTM post.
This is a very helpful tips, @MortenCopenhagen , and one that can definitely assist in catching duplicates and even spammy places that have been created.
