At the top, I have positioned the 3 pins according to where they are in the building. This reflects where the entrances are located.
At the bottom, I have followed the guideline and put them all at the center of the building.
Unfortunately, Jans Computer Safety and Bambies Toyshop can not be seen because they are covered by my very popular fruit stand! Being able to see all three stores is very helpful.
So I decided to prioritize the helpfulness and reflect the actual position when placing the pins. It will also be more helpful when new customers use Google Maps navigation to find the shops. And the pins in Streetview mode will make more sense (see photo below).
In cases, where an entrance is located at the back of a building this can also be reflected and benefit Maps users.
You are right.I also find myself sometimes positioning neibourghs close to one anotherâŚAnd I can,thinking that a few milimetres on the map means next door.Google Maps presition and versatility are also improving and are making it posible.
@MortenCopenhagen in cases like your example, where multiple businesses are located in a single building, my interpretation of âin the middleâ is that it should be in the middle of the total area of the space occupied by the shop, not in the middle of the space ocupied by the total building. So the pins should in my view indeed be in the postions as show in your upper image.
By the way: Iâve heard that you get a discount at Mortens Fruit & Veg if you post a sharp, crisp, well-framed and well-aligned pictures on their Maps listing, can you confirm that? And about Jans Computer Safety, I only know that they sell excellent products which I can recommend to everyone.
I agree with you. The most helpfull position of the pin is in the main entrance, eventhough this guide (Fix a missing address or wrong pin location ) said ââŚmove the map to the center of the building.â Because thereâs a possibility that Google Mapsâ driving navigation would suggest the wrong route (weâve seen those cases in Connect post, somewhere).
But at the case of multi level building like shopping mall, itâs better to put the pin at the center of each place/shop like what @JanVanHaver have said.
If you place 3 pins on top of each other as shown in my illustration, only one of them will show up on the map.
What is shown on the map is a subset of what is in the database. Could you imagine if all pins were to be always shown? You would not be able to read any of the names. It would look really messy. Google Maps will try to show the pins most relevant to you as a maps user.
But donât worry, all three pins will be in the database and can always be found via text search.
I see now what you mean. I have always wondered why some pin donât show alright.
Anyway it will be a great party if youâre free for my meet-up @MortenCopenhagen of the time is convenient. I love edits and your experience of thousands of edits will be very helpful for the meet-up. Thanks
I agree with the idea of making map and navigation convenient for the user. In one case Iâve worked on the pin in the middle of the building directed users to the back of the building rather than the customer side (front). The first time I tried to find a specific business in that building I was directed to a location that looked like a warehouse rather than a retail business.
Fortunately the pin has been moved and navigation directs users directly to the front door of the business.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the correct pin placement @MortenCopenhagen .
Google Maps Help is totally useless when it comes to guiding us where to correctly place a pin. The official help pages of Google My Business on the other hand do specify that one should place the pin in the middle of the business. This is also what I recall as the guidelines shared on Connect by @Flash .
From what I remember, there are different types of pins that Google uses. The oneâs we get to edit when we decide on the location of a business is the type of pin that should locate the business on the map. Thus, it makes sense to place it in the middle. For navigation, Google marks all public entry points. After all, a business could have two main doors to enter the business, so when Google directs a person how to navigate there, the system can decide which is the most convenient entrance to guide that person too. If we wish to influence that guidance, we have to give feedback to the directions that were given by Google.
It is a shame that for interested Map Editors, these hidden markers for entrances are not visible. But I guess it comes all back to keeping things simple and not allowing untrained volunteers with different capabilities to mess with all the complicated layers of Google Maps.
From a perspective of being helpful for the users of Maps, I couldnât agree more. I cannot recall the number of times that I had to walk around a building to find the main entrance to a business. If Maps could show users where entrances are, rather than having to use the navigation feature to be told, it would be a huge improvement.
I agree. In fact the existence of the hidden entrance pins can explain why the documentation is so hopeless on this issue. I wish this would be sorted out somehow.
Part of the solution could be more speed on fixing issues we send feedback on AND that Google would respond to us on our feedback.
All the best
Morten
Or let me rephrase this:
As long as the documentation regarding placement of the pins is so limited Google can not expect Local Guides to do better that what observations and user experiences shows us is more helpful to Maps users. If Google wants us to suggest the invisible entrance pins moved this need to be explained in the documentation. For now this is only undocumented hear say rumors.
There are no pins for entrances, hidden or visible. When someone tries to mark an entrance it is deleted as a duplicate.
Entrances are only mapped if the place has indoor mapping, in which case there should be a path going through each public entrance between the indoor paths and the outdoor paths/roads.
@MortenCopenhagen , the rules of the map are that the pin should be placed:
at the centre of the property when adding an address marker to a vacant property
at the centre of the house or main building when adding an address marker
at the centre of the building for a business that occupies an entire building
at the centre of each business when multiple businesses occupy a building
at the centre of the property for places that occupy more than one building or an area; unless there is an obvious âmainâ building (similar to how an address marker would be place)
So yes, for your example the three pins would be separately placed, but they should be centred rather than biased towards the entrances.
Unfortunately, for many of the rules the reference is the Maps Product Experts, especially those that formerly were Map Maker Product Experts (or Top Contributors as it was known then). We learn the rules via direct contact with the Maps team and because at one time we were amongst the edit reviewers. There were other members of the public that were reviewers, but they too relied on us to get the precise rules from Google. Google long ago made the decision that for many of the fine details they would distribute them to the public via TCs/PEs rather than publishing them.
Thank you @Flash ,
I am an advocate of sharing your vast knowledge on our subject matter and wouldnât wish to contradict you. It is always great to absorb your knowledge and reshare. However, it becomes rather confusing when you contradict yourself.
I can share multiple posts, including a recent comment by you dated 18th of January 2022, where you explain the invisible access point.
I fully understand that Google wishes to keep things simple and feels it doesnât need to explain all the behind-the-scenes workings of Google Maps. However, when Local Guides start to apply logic and are not aware of the existence and differences between a place marker versus an access point marker, they will deviate from the desired placement of the place marker (Pin) that we are allowed to edit as Local Guides.
By explaining to us that the function of the pin that we can edit is to get the correct name placement on the map (in the center of the object) and is there to locate the POI and not its entrance(s), Local Guides are more likely to take that seriously and no longer feel the urge to place the pin closer to the main entrance, as was suggested by the OP.
It makes sense to have different types of markers (hidden or not) and by having that insight, who would dare to place the marker by the entrance? No serious LG would. Yet, I have seen posts from Connect Moderators advising otherwise. Surely, if they knew about the hidden access marker, they would not have done so.
Wouldnât it be great if we all had the same manual (handbook) how to Map?
@JeroenM , I have never stated that the access point is an entrance marker. The access point is not a marker for entrances, rather it is the spot at which directions aim.
In almost all cases it belongs in same spot as the pin. Roads, paths and indoor mapping paths are what will cause people to be routed towards the access point; it is not done via designating all entrances with a hidden pin. Directions follow lines, not pins. They instead terminate at pins. Considering the number of places that have multiple entrances it is not useful to terminate the path at one of the entrances.
The first way to attempt to fix directions is usually to ensure that all roads and paths are correctly drawn. Moving the access point is only for when those situations fail, and even then it should normally be a bias towards the entrance rather than being placed right at the entrance. It is not often that the access point needs to be moved; centred markers/access points and properly drawn roads/paths will get most directions correct.
You are correct, explaining that pins should be at the centre of the place is important, and that is why it has been explained many times.
Please remember that Local Guides is about the comradery of contributing to the map, with emphasis on the reviews, pictures, etc. It is the Google Maps community that is focused on correct data. This is why people are generally directed to that community for data issues. As such, Connect is not necessarily the place to find experts on the precise rules of the map.
And about Jans Computer Safety, I only know that they sell excellent products which I can recommend to everyone.