Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google MapMaker Going Offline for Upgrades
This was posted in the MapMaker (thanks to TC Treebles for the heads up) forums this afternoon. It is highly unusual for Google to take a product offline, even if temporarily, ever. The idea of getting rid of whacked out bots and having a single, authoritative single repository for all location data is significant.
Planned Map Maker Outage, beginning Nov 20, 2013
Hi Mappers,
One of the great things about Google Map Maker is the fact that the wonderful contributions you make go to all of Google’s products, including Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Maps for Mobile. In order to strengthen the link between Map Maker and these other products, we are making some behind-the scenes improvements to ensure your mapping contributions reach all associated Google products as efficiently and reliably as possible. These changes will also result in a single repository to hold all Maps data, and let us get rid of Google Automated Syncer bots and related issues.
Within the next day, Map Maker will undergo a planned outage, lasting a few days, to make these changes. During this time, we will be unable to accept edits or reviews of edits on Map Maker. You will still be able to use Google Maps to report a problem or fix the map. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause and will post again when we begin the outage.
Thank you for your understanding,
Pavithra Kanakarajan and Anand Srinivasan
Map Maker Product Manager, Map Maker Tech Lead
© Copyright 2024 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
12 Comments
Sounds big. Now if only the editors would accept my edits. 😉
Hope it improves the process as it impacts smbs.
“…get rid of Google Automated Syncer bots…” – this alone means good news!
I really hope they also fix the auto-publishing for new users bug – it’s causing serious problems and allowing noobs to have way too much power on MapMaker.
I just ran into this while trying to make a couple of edits for my clients. I wish I had read your post yesterday 😛
This is a HUGE update.
Noticed some strange updates to some of our clients. Sure enough, EVERY client of ours who has a Google+ page is now ‘verified’.
After doing some research, Google has FINALLY pushed them into the new dashboard. Keep in mind these are Canadian clients
Woohoo!
I’m wondering if these google mapmaker updates have anything to do with the new dashboard update. I was told by google places rep that all google accounts should be moved over to the new dashboard by the end of the year.. odd?
Interesting change. It seemed like there were some bugs in the process, so I hope those get fixed shortly.
Thnaks for this update Mike. I really like using Map Maker for a few reasons, one of which is because of the categories. I actually enjoy cleaning up listings when I see problems. Hopefully when it comes out of the update we will have a more useful product.
@Michael
I think custom categories will be one of the things to go. 🙁
…hopefully this will be a good update, not one that results in ‘missing’ aspects, such as we’ve seen in the past.
@Andrew Forster – interesting find re: G+ Page holders showing as ‘verified’ 🙂 I too am in Canada, and I don’t see that (still looking though). I have one client who is waiting for their PIN postcard, and their G+ Page is still not showing as verified… perhaps because the PIN had been requested? not sure yet.
I really look forward to these changes, I spend a lot of time in Taiwan and a lot of places on the east coast of the island is unmapped. I’ve taken some cool pictures and added it to Google maps, I also plan on actually trying to map out some roads when I make it back there early next year.
??????????? 🙂
Hi all,
MM is live again. I haven’t had the chance to play with it much after the update, but I’ve noticed this: SABs with hidden address have now re-appeared on MapMaker. Wondering whether this is a bug or may be intentionally implemented.
Comments for this post are closed.