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Google Maps wrong again

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25 Comments http://bro.gs/xyxa

This time it’s in the site links, hat tip to Tony at City Visitor for sending me the data.

Tony asked me why this page driving lessons in hull would cause Google to show US Maps under neither there listing in Google organic ..

So I did this search in Google.co.uk

google-search

and sure enough Google presented me first off with a Google Map of the UK but then the city visitor URL had a US link:

driving-lessons-in-hullwhen clicked:

driving-lessons-in-hull-map

Is this another bad data push? I found a lot more US maps appearing on UK local search terms where the US and UK have the same names like Manchester etc

Dave

25 Comments

  • rishil 1419 days ago

    http://designer-watches.org

    Were you logged in or out?

    Reply

  • malcolm coles 1419 days ago

    http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk

    Google maps does my head in.
    Do this search for hotels near clavering. Click on C. Then Click on the URL given which is theyewtree.net. Which is the URL for a hotel more than 100 miles away to the west of London.

    Reply

  • jaamit 1419 days ago

    http://www.freshegg.com

    Another interesting case of UK searchers being fed US results. The longer Google keep neglecting the glaring problems in UK results the bigger the danger of losing their faithful 90% market share. If Bing were clever they’d roll out the full version in the UK now, they could really perform a coup in winning over UK searchers…

    Reply

  • Paul 1419 days ago

    http://www.northsouthmedia.co.uk/

    get the exact same thing for ‘driving lessons irvine’ on the #7th organic listing – I knew Irvine (Scotland) was trying to twin with Irvine (California, US) but this is taking it a tad too far.

    Reply

  • maurice 1419 days ago

    http://hauntingthunder.wordpress.com/

    I saw some wierdness staying in blackpool last week – search for “imperial hotel blackpool” and google maps returns multiple locations for the imperial.

    NB the imperal is the best known htel in Blackpool (its where the party laeders stay during conferece season)

    Reply

  • ThePost 1419 days ago

    Googlemaps has a known issue with its data providers for some post code areas in the UK. I have a directory with Googlemaps which can be embarrassing. Should ditch it really.

    Reply

  • DaveN 1419 days ago

    @malcolm coles thats just spam lol

    Reply

  • malcolm coles 1419 days ago

    http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk

    @Dave. Which way? Is Marco Pierre White dropping misleading google local entries all over the country?!? Or are the other lot attempting to pretend to be him?!

    I think it’s more c*ck up – the other yew tree (PR0) is here: http://www.theyewtreeinn.com, but they’re really hard to find in google … (try searching for theyewtreeinn and Google tries to correct you to MPW’s place.)

    Reply

  • Dudibob 1419 days ago

    I’m seeing that more and more how US things have dominance even in the .co.uk listings. Lancaster is a real bad one for this too.

    Reply

  • DaveN 1419 days ago

    @malcolm coles maybe your right on that one, we had a similar issues with the old deanery my local eatery http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/hotels-in-ripon-google-local-mixup.html

    Reply

  • Allan Stewart 1419 days ago

    http://www.fireflyseo.com

    @malcolm Ooooo. I live just down the road from Clavering in a little town called Bishops Stortford. Isn’t that funny :)

    Reply

  • mark. chapman 1419 days ago

    http://www.fuseo.co.uk

    hi dave,

    I’ve been claiming a few Google maps / business listings for clients lately. Rather than drone on being diplomatic trying to explain everything, suffice to say Google maps must be considered a terrible experience in terms of ‘customer service’. I like to call it a ‘manana’ kind of thing as they say in Spain – it’ll be done ‘tomorrow’… only tomorrow never seems to come :-)

    For a start, no-one at Google has answered my queries (not that I, deep down, expected them to). I reckon I might get more help from this blog (which says a great deal about Google maps service, doesn’t it?).

    Take this Google maps entry… (hope you’re ok about the link)

    UK lawyers and solicitors in Manchester

    At this moment I can see it is currently ‘merging’ (as Google maps describes the process), merging with a previous entry.

    Hey, you might say, it’s not merging – but that just highlights my point about this quite odd process. Does anyone know when and how the merge will be successful? Having been through this process before, it still feels like a leap in the dark when you do it. Will it work? Who knows! If I ran a directory service like this, I’d soon be fired!

    I don’t want to make this post a long one. But one has to ask: how can this type of updating be considered a great way for businesses, that aim to be efficient and effective, to keep accurate map / business locations info on the Internet? (And I know we can start talking about algorithms and maybe SEO here – but that’s not my point).

    Apparently this chap, Joel Headley, (in the US of course) is now working on Google maps for us all. Anyone know him? Does he talk and help you at all? Not me he hasn’t anyway.

    I’ll stop there – don’t want to be known as the ‘angry young (seo) man’ about Google maps :-)

    To be honest, I do smile at the whole thing and can’t criticise Google for what they run etc, but Google maps… there must be an easier way :-)

    mark.

    Reply

  • Shan 1419 days ago

    http://www.edotsindia.com

    May be a few errors like this. I am sure GOOGLE will fix them soon.

    Reply

  • SEO in Ripon 1419 days ago

    [...] did a post today about Google Maps getting it wrong which made me start to have a look at these local type [...]

  • mark 1419 days ago

    http://freeiphone3gs.blogspot.com

    Did you try that same search directly on the maps search box too?

    Reply

  • Amelia Vargo 1419 days ago

    Google maps is a mystery. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t! But the value of using it (when it behaves as you would expect) makes it worthwhile. I just wish they’d iron out the issues.

    Reply

  • Simon Heseltine 1418 days ago

    http://fanhouse.com

    That is a glaring error… Humberside was abolished in 1996.

    Reply

  • Charles 1417 days ago

    http://www.surfarama.com

    Just posted about this with an example from google.co.nz

    http://www.onlinemarketer.co.nz/google-not-so-local/

    Reply

  • Me on the Net 1416 days ago

    http://stupid-cupids.com

    have refresh the page by pressing ctrl + f5? sometime the cookies can be bother

    Reply

  • mark. chapman 1412 days ago

    http://www.fuseo.co.uk

    | Shan said: “May be a few errors like this. I am sure GOOGLE will fix them soon.”

    Well, maybe they will – but Google isn’t communicating too well that they will.

    Reply

  • Lancaster SEO 1403 days ago

    http://www.webtalentseo.com

    google still a lot of things to fix up..

    Reply

  • Efusjon 1400 days ago

    One day Google maps (or Yahoo Maps or Mapquest, etc.) will give someone the wrong directions and they’ll end up in the ad part of town and something will happen and then a lawsuit will result in millions awarded. I just see it coming like McDonalds hot coffee.

    Reply

  • Google’s adding maps of the USA to UK results » malcolm coles 1368 days ago

    [...] the point in his video explaining .com sites and UK results. (And apologies to Dave Naylor whose post about this I actually commented on 2 months ago but completely forgot I’d [...]

  • Turdle 495 days ago

    Since a few weeks neither Google’s Android weather service nor Google Maps can distinguish betweem HaMburg, Germany and HaRburg Germany, or the weather widget categorizes my location as “Germany”. Is GWB now working for Google?

    Reply

    • Turdle 495 days ago

      Erm…sheesh… Google Street View that is…not Google Maps :)

      Reply

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