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

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

This happened to me just this morning! I asked for directions to one dentist and it directed me to a sponsored advertiser instead.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

That's even worse! If that had happened to me, without knowing it can happen with plain addresses too, I'd be getting suspicious of a profit motive. Do you mind sharing what you typed into the bar so I can see that form of broken?

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

What I typed was "Tufts Dental, 1 Kneeland Street, Boston, MA." This was into my iPad's Google Maps app; I didn't have any trouble doing it on my desktop machine.