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

[tober.livejournal.com]

FWIW... I don't disagree with you in that they should make it much more obvious when they give you an address that isn't a pretty exact[1] match for what you typed but it does seem like you had the street name wrong - I am pretty sure the place you were trying to get to was 52 Brooks St. Mapquest has better behavior than google in this case, if you ask Mapquest for 52 Brook St in Brighton, you get 52 Brooks St (not 52 Brook St in Brookline) and also "We did not find the exact location you entered" although the way in which it presents that text is a bit subtle... but at least it's there. I also tried bing maps and they give the same answer as mapquest does but, like google, don't tell you that what they gave you didn't match what you asked for.

[1] The matching could be a little fuzzy but not too fuzzy. For example, if you ask for "25 First St" and it gives "25 1st St" or vice-versa, it probably shouldn't warn. There are other cases where it would probably have to warn even when the address is perfectly right, e.g. if you say "Chestnut Hill" and the address is in Newton, Brookline, or Boston but within the right boundaries.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I like the fact that Google search always warns, and the warning is not obtrusive yet it very obvious. I'd be completely fine with that even for something that should be obvious - Google of all companies should understand that obvious isn't always.

But the thing that gets me is they've solved this exact problem with Search already, and it's far, fr less important there than it is with Maps - extra mouse clicks are not the same as driving across town. Apparently no one in their Cambridge office goes to Brighton. . .