Last Updated on 1 Feb 2023 by SEO Manager
Table of Contents
What Is Google Maps ?
Google Maps is a web mapping product developed at Google by Lars Rasmussen and Jens Rasmussen. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets, real-time traffic conditions, and route planning for traveling by foot, car, air and public transportation.
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Why Local Businesses Need Google Maps ?
Google Maps is one of the best methods to differentiate you from your competitors. Because again, MOST enterprise owners DO NOT completely fill out their Google Maps listing.
So by you taking the extra time to fill out your Google My Business page, you’ll shortly elevate your small business to the highest of the local search results.
When you create your Google Maps Listing, one of many sections you need to fill out is your website URL. This creates the “landing page” to your Google Maps itemizing, and it performs a necessary role in general local search engine optimization strategy.
This Google Maps Listing will directly affect the rating and authority within the native search outcomes or SERP.
Google Maps Integration with SEO
Google Maps is an inherently visual platform that goes beyond the maps themselves.
Google Maps is undoubtedly one of the most useful tools. it is also an incredibly powerful marketing tool.
Businesses, can set up their own profile in Google Maps, where they could add a logo, a cover photo and pick a short name.
For example, the Google Maps’ Updates tab offered a similar feed that included businesses’ posts along with news, recommendations, stories and other features designed to encourage discovery.
The feed, which is found with the Explore tab of the Google Maps app, is designed to make it easier to find the most recent news, updates and recommendations from trusted local sources.
Google’s map offerings build in the human intelligence on the front end, and that’s what allows its computers to tell you the best route from San Francisco to Boston.
You can also use third-party monitoring tools to keep tabs not only on your business, but competitors’ businesses in Google Maps.
You can check how many reviews the top-ranked business in Google Maps has, which can give you an idea of the standard and volume of reviews necessary to rank more highly.
Citations can function similarly to backlinks – the more citations you have, the more ranking potential your business may have in Google Maps.
You can find the attribution in the line shown on the bottom of the content in our mapping products along with copyright notices.
Brief History of Google Maps
In October 2004, after additional acquisitions of a geospatial data visualization company and a real time traffic analyzer, Google Maps was launched in February 2005. Then, in September 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Google Maps quickly updated its satellite imagery of New Orleans to allow users to view the extent of the flooding in various parts of that city.
The Android app was first released in September 2008, though the GPS-localization feature had been in testing on cellphones since 2007.
Up until iOS 6, the built-in maps application on the iOS operating system was powered by Google Maps.
However, with the announcement of iOS 6 in June 2012, Apple announced that they had created their own Apple Maps mapping service, which officially replaced Google Maps when iOS 6 was released on September 19, 2012.
One day later, The Guardian reported that Google was preparing its own Google Maps app, which was released on December 12, 2012.
Within only two days, the application had been downloaded over ten million times.
Google Extend Capability of Google Maps
Google Map Maker allowed users to collaboratively expand and update the service’s mapping worldwide but was discontinued from March 2017.
However, crowdsourced contributions to Google Maps were not discontinued as the company announced those features would be transferred to the Google Local Guides program.
Google Maps is available as a mobile app for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems.
By using the Google Maps API, it is possible to embed Google Maps into an external website, on to which site-specific data can be overlaid.
Over 1,000,000 web sites use the Google Maps API, making it the most heavily used web application development API.
Slipped in under Maps, is a panel from which you can view all the business ratings and photos you’ve contributed to Google over time.
As is the case with these kinds of applications, you’ll need to be connected to the Internet via 3G to download maps in real time.
The Google Maps apps for iOS and Android have many of the same features, including turn-by-turn navigation, street view, and public transit information.
Like many other Google web applications, Google Maps uses JavaScript extensively.
Users can add points, lines, shapes, notes and images on top of Google Maps using a WYSIWYG editor.
Map users can view different floors of a building or subway station by clicking on a level selector that is displayed near any structures which are mapped on multiple levels.
Crowdsourcing is used to obtain the GPS-determined locations of a large number of cellphone users, from which live traffic maps are produced.
My Maps is a feature in Google Maps launched in April 2007 that enables users to create custom maps for personal use or sharing.
An Android app for My Maps, initially released in March 2013 under the name Google Maps Engine Lite, is also available.
In March 2011, indoor maps were added to Google Maps, giving users the ability to navigate themselves within buildings such as airports, museums, shopping malls, big-box stores, universities, transit stations, and other public spaces .
On 23 September 2020, Google announced a COVID-19 Layer update for Google maps, which is designed to offer a seven-day average data of the total COVID-19-positive cases per 100,000 people in the area selected on the map.
Over the past few years, Google Maps has added features that allowed users to follow businesses, much like Facebook does, as well as message those businesses directly in the app, similar to Messenger.
Google Street View wasn’t built to create maps like this, but the geo team quickly realized that computer vision could get them incredible data for ground truthing their maps.
One of its first uses is finding street signs so that Google’s maps can better understand the logic of human transportation systems.
Data used for Google Maps typically contains, at the least, address information.