Map editing- basic concepts an editor should understand.

[Emmik20]

Mapping editing is what will all do. While some find it easy and straight forward, for some it come will challenges. It is because of this, I want to share my experiences and believe someone would benefit in the process. Now, let delve straight into it, we start with name accuracy.

Name Accuracy.

The first thing to check is whether you are looking at POI/business or address. Generally, an address does not have name. That means we are left with POI/business name.

For names a map editor should check for the following factors.

Criteria	Wrong	Correct	Remark
Mix of small and capital letter	KfC	KFC	Name should be in capital letter
Unnecessary or missing space	Mc Donald’s	McDonald’s	McDonald’s is spelt without a space
Mix of languages or unexpected language	Мcдоналдъс – for Russia geographical space, the name is wrong because is an Uzbek Cyrillic spelling	McDonald’s or Макдоналдс	For each country name should be in local language and/or International brand name
Redundant, repeated or missing information	The Burger King	Burger King	Burger king is spelt without article “The ‘’.
Incorrect or missing punctuation in name	McDonalds	McDonald’s	Apostrophe sign (’) is missing

Category Accuracy.

Finding the best category for business is straight forward but there are situations where an editor will have trouble assigning the most accurate category to a business.

• The first question to ask is existing category accurate? If not.
• Is there a best fit category?

For an example, a business advertises as a Bus tour agency and transport company, you might want hesitate as to which category best fit this business, A transport company or tourist agency? General rule is to look for activities that the business engages 60% of the time and if this cannot be determined, map editor should choose description that appear first in the company’s name.

• For Example: Miami tour & transport, an editor will choose’’ tourism’’ category for this company as it appears first in the name.

Location/Address Accuracy.

When checking address, it is important that all components are present and in the right order. An acceptable address form should look like this example: Richard Sorge St, 24A, #105, Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia, 450105. Similarly, many editors tend to overlook postal code thinking that they are no longer relevant. In my experience as a map analyst, I have come across scenarios where two exact addresses exist within the same locality, the only thing that distinguished them is the postal code. This is the more reason an editor should provide postal code and verify the existing one.

Address Components	Example
Street name	Richard Sorge
Street number	24A
Unit/Apt	#105
Locality	Ufa
Region/State	Bashkortostan
Country	Russia
Postal code	450105

Pin Accuracy.

The basic concept is for the pin to be at the center of the roof for any POI. Let look at an example where a user is searching for IKEA store located within MEGA mall , Rubezhnaya Ulitsa, 174, Ufa**.** The pin fell on Auchan supermarket which is a wrong location. A map editor will move the pin to the right location which is the roof top of IKEA store.

Pin accuracy classification	Interpretation
Perfect	Pin falls at the center of the roof top
Approximate	Pin fall on the compound of a building and if the POI is located in the large shopping mall, it be on exact location of the POI.
Next door	Next door means pin fall on next building/compound which shared the street/block /side as the intended POI
Wrong	Pin is not a building, its compound or next-door property
Can’t verify	POI/business cannot be found.

Opening Hours.

Google map uses 12 hours clock system, however in certain countries where 24 hours clock is used, an editor can still enter the opening and closing time in 24 hours format- google will convert it to 12 hours format.

Here, let examine POI within POI. A map editor will frequently encounter situations where a business is within a building belong to another larger business both with different opening and closing hours. for Example, Farmlend is pharmaceutical store inside Karusel Hypermarket . The opening hours should be listed separately.

Business	Opening hours
KARUSEL	9:00am-11:00 pm
FARMLEND	9:15am-10:15pm

• POI with more than one set of hours: For example, cashier office operating with a theatre for usually have separate opening and closing hours. The general rule is to choose the longest hours. Let look at Bashkir Theater of Opera and Ballet. . The opening hours for the cash office are the longest and should be chosen for the POI.

Bashkir Opera House	Opening Hours
Bashkir Opera cash office	9:00am – 7:30pm
Bashkir Administrative office	9 :00 am- 6:00pm

• POI without expected hours: This type POI doesn’t have opening and closing hours. if one is found, it is advisable that the map editor further investigate by going to official website if available. You will find public parks and landmarks in this category.

Phone number accuracy.

An editor should check against the criteria listed below for verification of phone accuracy

Criteria	Explanation
Correct	Phone number is correct and can be verified using official resources
Incorrect	The phone number shown is not correct for the business and there is another correct number.
Missing	There is no phone number for the business but research show that a correct phone number exist
Can’t verify	Phone number found cannot be verified from any official source

URL Verification /Rating.

An editor should check against the criteria listed below

Criteria	Explanation
Correct:	Research confirms the business has official website and listed on Google map
Irrelevant	No official site available for the POI, this is typical of small businesses
Incorrect	Research shows the business does have a website, or the URL provided lead to another site or return error message.
Missing	Research shows the business has official website and in this case an editor should try to provide it

[TusharSuradkar]

Hi @Emmik20

What an amazing and well-researched article for keeping Google Maps accurate and helpful for everyone.

I especially like the charts that you provided with Do’s and Don’ts styled examples.

I however would prefer the pin to be located not in the center but at the access point of a place.

Recently I run into problems when trying to reach the entrance gate of a huge park that was not a regular shape and its pin was in the center.

The entire park is fenced with only a single entrance gate.

In this case, Maps took the road that was running closer to the pin geographically but there was no entrance or access to the park at that place.

I found myself facing the huge fencing wall when Maps prompted that I had arrived.

I had to eventually find out the road to the entrance without using Maps taking directions from nearby people present on site.

Love the banner illustration of the post

[Emmik20]

Hello @TusharSuradkar Thank for the analysis and for liking my front page diagram. In past when I held contract as Map analyst , the pin is used to be on the wall of a building . later I think most online map providers decided that the best position is the center of the roof top.

Now , there is a pin for location and arrows that point to the entrance(s) of building/POI . It is available in other maps .However google has yet to introduce entrance arrows to their maps.

[TusharSuradkar]

Thanks for the insight @Emmik20

that feature should be added to Maps soon without which it becomes useless in many cases.

[Emmik20]

Hello @TusharSuradkar you are welcome. Hopefully, Google will introduce the feature soon.

[Flash]

Hello @Emmik20 ,

Thank you for letting users know of some common issues.

I’ll mention, however, that your example of punctuation is not a good one. Where I live, which is where the chain first expanded outside of the USA, McDonalds has no apostrophe.

[Emmik20]

Hello @Flash . Thanks for the comment.

The concept of POI name accuracy is to make sure that a POI name appears as it is on official website. I just checked McDonald’s website , the company’s name is written with the apostrophe sign included.

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @Emmik20

Thanks for sharing such detailed tips.

I do agree with @TusharSuradkar that your recommendation of placing the pin of Ikea at the center of the building can be found, but it is not very helpful to Maps User. Therefore I (and quite a few other local guides) recommend placing the main pin where the main entrance is. Especially in the case of IKEA where the shop is huge. New visitors arriving by foot will find it super nice to know which way around the building is shortest to get to the entrance. So I aim to always position the pin to show where the entrance is.

Your discussion of the extra pin to show the entrance is actually already implemented. The only way to experience this is via navigation and sometimes when you move a pin you will be asked if this is the entrance pin or the main pin you want to move. So since we can not reliably access and check the “entrance pin” I still recommend we place the main pin where the entrance is.

I also have a comment on your tips regarding naming.

There are more issues (some of which are a lot more frequent problems than the ones you selected). These include:

ALL CAPS: The name should only be in capital letters only if the name is 3 or fewer letters long.

GEO stuffing: Some chains of stores like to add the street or city name in the name field. This is not allowed according to the guidelines. There is a lot of cleaning for Local Guides to do to fix this issue.

CATEGORY stuffing: Some places like to repeat the category in the name field. This is also against the guidelines. Feel free to remove such additions to the business names.

SLOGAN stuffing: A few businesses think it is OKAY to add some marketing slur in the name. “- Best bread in town”, "America’s Most Convenient Bank". Such tag lines should also be deleted via suggesting an edit.

You can find a detailed explanation of all the naming guidelines here:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en

Click/tap Name

Then Learn more

Cheers

Morten

[iorikun301]

Great tips, @Emmik20

But for POI’s name, I prefer refer to it’s storefront. It’s official name should be stated there.

[Emmik20]

Hello @MortenCopenhagen . Thanks for further recommendation. In my own view and from the training I had as Map analyst , I still believe the best position for the pin is at the center of the roof top. There are businesses that located inside a massive shopping mall ,you imagine putting pins for each of them at entrance is definitely going to be cumbersome. That is one reason it should be on the roof top.

Besides , placing pin at exact roof-top location will give a user an idea as to which direction he should go when patronising a business inside a mall.

I am aware of google type entrance pin which is only available on navigation map, but not available on default and satellite maps . You will find a sample of entrance arrows I am recommending

here .

On Business name , I knew that there are many issues to it , infact in my map search manual , there is up to ten categories of names and hundreds of things that could go wrong with them.

But, I don’t intend to start another tutorial here . This is why I limits what I wrote. My only suggestion for is for map editors to spell business name correctly as it written officially .

[Emmik20]

Hello @iorikun301 Thank for commendation. Business name should be written at the store front, I agree with you absolutely.

[MortenCopenhagen]

I understand, @Emmik20 .

Regarding placement of pins you chose IKEA as an example. IKEA has no in-shop stores, so I will still argue that the pin in your example should be at the entrance. We should always consider helpfullness for Maps users.

Other places can be different if they don’t use the Indoor Maps where all stores and levels get visible.

The link you shared is to an app in Russian. Do you have a better link?

Cheers again

Morten

[Emmik20]

Hello @MortenCopenhagen . IKEA store at Mega Ufa does not have separate entrance . There are three entrances at MEGA mall . The one that leads to IKEA, is also shared by five other businesses . Infact, it only lead to the passage inside the mall .

The link I posted , visibly shown pin on roof top pointing to exact location of a business (Stilnyashka) and there other six visible arrows pointing to entrance doors of Grinvich mall , where the business is situated.

[MortenCopenhagen]

Thanks for the clarification, @Emmik20 . I have visited IKEA in many parts of the world, and they have always been in a dedicated building. Hence not sharing their entrance with other businesses. I stand corrected on your example.

Morten

[Emmik20]

Hello @MortenCopenhagen I am telling you the truth , the door that led to IKEA is also shared by other businesses.

Thanks for all the good comments , I believe we have exchanged enough ideas for today.

Best regards.

[JanVanHaver]

@Emmik20 @MortenCopenhagen interesting discussions one can have about topics such as ideal pin location, isn’t it?

It is clear from the post & comments so far that a lot is in the category “it depends” when it comes to following the guidelines. That’s why I want to limit my contribution to 2 points.

The first is uttering my surprise that apparently you would, in your local situation, possibly consider the postal code as superfluous. In a lot of of countries it is a very necessary element of the address if you want to uniquely identify it. An interesting aspect there is also the place of the postal code in the complete address. In your case putting it at the very end seems to be the most natural position, but to me in Belgium the ‘normal’ position is between street (incl. house nr if relevant) and city. (There’s a podcast episode in there somewhere but a lot of input from all over the globe might be needed ).

The second point is a remark about the entrance location. This has always puzzled me: at some level the info about entrance location is (at least partially) stored already in Maps, but I find no way to visualize or use this info. An unambiguous indication of the fact that it is there can be found in the list of reasons you can choose from when submitting an address edit: search for an address > Suggest an edit > Fix an address > Next > drop down list at the bottom of the page. One of the options there is “Fix the entrance”. They would not have included this option if there would not be such a thing as entrance location already.

[Emmik20]

Hello @JanVanHaver Thanks for clarification on your side . I did not say postal code is superficial in my post. Rather , I mentioned that people now neglect it when writing an addresses online. This I knew when working as map analyst and where I processed hundreds of Map search queries in everyday.

Further In the post , I used the phrase ‘’ an acceptable form address should look like this ‘’. and not ‘‘must be like this’’.

Generally , On google map for Russian market , postal usually come last in the address.

Again , I did not at any time discuss entrance pin , the discussion starts from the conversation with Tushar_Suradkar . It was there I told him about entrance arrows which I have seen other maps but not on Google map. .

Like I discussed with MortenCopenhagen , I am aware of entrance pin in Google navigation map( which you recommended here again ) but not available in default or satellite maps . What I am emphasising is entrance arrows in default and satellite maps.

(For purpose of discussion , I am putting a link to a map of IKEA store in Ufa , which has a separate pin on the building and entrance arrow shared by other stores. And note, in the map the arrow pointing to IKEA store alone is always underclock , it is more of an emergency exist . you can see staircase leading to it in the picture below.

Everyone coming to IKEA Ufa has to enter through the main passage which leads to other stores and as well as IKEA.)

I believe is not ideal for me to discuss other maps here , I did not even mentioned it in the post in the first place. So , I am rounding off this discussion.

[Ewaade_3A]

I enjoyed reading through this thread. I never knew there was such thing as a ‘Map Analyst’, now, I know.

Nice cover, nice writeup @Emmik20

[Emmik20]

Hello @Ewaade_3A Thanks. There are map analysts who make online maps for tech companies. I did the job for two and half years before I terminated the contract .

[Ewaade_3A]

I see. I never knew about that @Emmik20

I loved creating maps as a High school student, but I just never learnt about ICT, maybe I would have loved such a job too. I love Geography.

This is what I wanted to say from the onset bug was just too shy to say.