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

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

If hadn't previously lived in Concord, Mass., I would be looking at your comment and thinking, "Holy crap, New England Streets are completely insane! How the hell does anyone find anything around there?"

Instead, I'm fascinated by thie analysis of exactly how New England tends to confuse Google... and the back of my mind is sort of chuckling a bit and thinking, "Heh, yeah, I suppose that could be sort of confusing for an outsider..."

Say, do people around there still rely on those fabulous ABC Map and Road Atlases?

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is one place where local knowledge is really local, as tober pointed out. I actually found myself wishing that someone had given me directions according to where something used to be yesterday, because then I would have immediately known where I was going. (Although when they figured out to give me directions by where the Dunkies was, that's when I knew where to go.)

Many gas stations do indeed still have those maps, I just haven't had the need to grab one since my car was stolen last year and there wasn't a nearby gas station when we got to the wrong place. I should get one soon though :).