This is not a feature, Google

[brynndragon]

You know how, when you make a typo in Google and it auto-redirects, it actively tells you it is doing so ("Showing results for $new_search. Search instead for $original_search")?

Google Maps does not tell you it is redirecting. At all.

It will gladly give you a completely different town than the one you asked for, and the only warning it has done so is giving the new town in tiny font underneath the street name, the same as if that's what you'd typed in. There wasn't even a "Did you mean. . . ?", much less a "Showing $different_town" or a "Could not find $original_address".

This is how I ended up in Brookline last night, having asked to go to Brighton. I am not the only person who had that problem either.

(I'd tell Google about this problem, but my Google-fu fails to tell me how to do so. Ironically enough.)

ETA: An example of this behavior: 52 Brook Street Brighton, MA 02135 - try copy-pastaing that address into Google Maps and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Comments

[ellyfialy.livejournal.com]

Boo! I don't want to have to be paranoid about Google maps and bad directions. :(

[cos]

Google has always given bad directions around Boston. It's been getting a lot better. Up until a couple of years ago I found it to be pretty much worthless in the Boston area, even when it did happen to get the right address (which, in the city of Boston itself, was a crapshoot). These days, it's right more often than not. But I still would never trust it without a lot of double-checking, and comparing against directions a human has written or told me.