04-28-2017 04:16 AM
Where is the best spot to place your map marker:
at the center of the building
At the center of the plot of land
At the entrace to the plot
04-28-2017 04:38 AM
SolutionThe building.
It used to be standard to place the marker by the entrance to a business, but that is no longer tje case
04-29-2017 03:14 AM
04-29-2017 03:18 AM
I normally place it where the entrance of the business is (well, when it may apply). Another reason for this may be that (where available), Maps will automatically attach an (outside) street view of the place and if you place it where the entrance is, chances are that it will be seen on the SV imagery.
04-29-2017 04:09 AM
As stated by @Pea, the rules of the map require the marker to be placed at the middle of the business, not at the entrance.
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04-29-2017 09:23 AM
Which rules, @Flash? And how can someone without an architect's precise tools define where the geometric "middle" of a business is (especially in crowded city centres)?
04-29-2017 10:38 AM
@petocsaba wrote:I normally place it where the entrance of the business is (well, when it may apply). Another reason for this may be that (where available), Maps will automatically attach an (outside) street view of the place and if you place it where the entrance is, chances are that it will be seen on the SV imagery.
This.
The entrance of the place is the only public information you could have; you are not required to know internal maps (indoor maps) of a place, and many businesses may be located inside the same building. This is an obvious rule for malls (with or without indoor floor map).
04-29-2017 11:17 AM
I think it all depends, for a venture taking up the whole land, i usually place the marker at the middle of the land, and that mustnt be exact, then for a venture occupying just a part of the land, i use the entrace to that particular business and of course it mustnt be exact
04-29-2017 11:50 AM
Which rules, @GreggG? And how can someone without an architect's precise tools define where the geometric "middle" of a business is (especially in crowded city centres)?
The rules of the map have been in place for years. They do get modified over time, but they have remained essentially the same for many years. It is necessary that the same rules be applied across not just the publicly available ways to edit but also the methods that Google uses to modify the map, in order for a uniform map to be created where everyone knows what to expect.
Unfortunately a lot of the rules are not in the help centre at the moment because the Map Maker portion was removed and it has yet to be ported elsewhere. The editing available in Maps has historically just been a dumbed down version of Map Maker that was then reviewed in Map Maker, and thus Maps users were simply referred to the Map Maker rules. But even when the Map Maker rules were in the help centre only a portion of them could be covered, as mapping is so complex that not everything could be written out. In fact, the written versions where simplified due at one point as people weren't reading the too complex version. Many of the rules have never been published in the help centre, but rather are supplied to the TCs to pass along to mappers.
This particular rule is one that has been modified over time. At one point it was allowable to place the marker at either the middle or entrance to a place. Google started moving markers to the centre of the business just over 2 years ago, and a year and a half ago it was confirmed that they wanted mappers to only use this method. We have been providing that direction ever since, and the Map Maker portion of the help centre was later updated to reflect that new direction.
Unfortunately, for many rules there will never be a written rule to which we can point mappers, but rather they will need to rely on the TCs and now the LGC mods to provide them. This also applies to interpretations of the rules; we will often be the source of how Google wants a rule interpreted. I realize this is new to you, but as a mod what I would suggest is that you follow the TC model where you ensure that you always express when something is your opinion or conjecture, thus people will know that for everything else you are passing along what we have been given by Google.
As for precision, no one has asked that you get it correct within a millimetre. The centre of a building is fairly easy to judge. For a building with multiple POIs we are to place the marker at the approximate centre the feature's location within the building. For places that include grounds we would place the marker in the approximate centre of the entire feature. Landscaping and parking lots do not make a place include grounds; that rule is more for places that have multiple buildings or an outdoor element, like a college campus or a park.
Due to the volume I receive, I do not respond to unsolicited private messages
04-29-2017 11:59 AM
Found this from Andrew: https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!topic/map-maker/-Ci1PWMB...
But this applies only when the corrispondence between building and business is clear and unique.
In my experience, this is a rule i follow for standalone businesses as like as large hotels, malls, etc. but more often i have to place it near the entrance, inside the business area, when in a building there are lots of businesses.
Anyway, sadly, the mapmaker knowledge base seems offline.