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

[roamin-umpire.livejournal.com]

Weird. That's the sort of behavior I've come to expect when the address I type is actually in the next town over, but I've yet to hit it when the address does in fact exist in the town I entered.

Question: I noticed that there is a Brooks Street in Brighton; I can't easily find a Brook Street. Could that have been the problem?

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Yes, it turns out the invitation left out the "s" at the end of the street name. But I had no way of knowing that until I actually got to the proper destination from Brookline. (In fact I had to double-check this morning, because I hadn't noticed last night that there was a difference)