In November, Google announced that MapMaker would “graduate to Google Maps”. That’s corporate speak for close. But what’s good for Google and the bulk of their users is not such a smooth transition nor offer as many benefits to the professional Local SEO practicioner.

At the time of the announcements I noted that it made sense for Google if not for the SEO community for the following reasons:
1- It will create a single unified interface to be maintained going forward.
2- Google will have a single source for changes so that things like categories and address standards can be handled in a unified way.
3- There is one less data pipeline feeding their local database keeping the whole (complicated) system simpler.
4- There will be one less spam vector.
5- They will have a unified community management process. This means fewer support people, fewer forums etc. and lower Google costs and reduce their code base maintenance.

Right on schedule, I received this email detailing the end date:

But like with all Google “transitions” its one step forward and in this case at least one step (or maybe .8 of a step) back. Things like listing history, alternative names, additional categories and hidden listings are not currently being surfaced in the Maps interface and we don’t know if they ever will be. The problem with a lowest common denominator interface is that information that is useful for diagnostics will disappear.

The reality is that MapMaker was a kludge with a butt ugly and arcane interface to things like adding roads. It was quirky and a pain to work with. Hopefully by adding its features to a modern platform some of that can be mitigated. And hopefully some of the tools that gave more insight into a listings inner data points and history might some day be revived. I am not holding my breath.

Google unfortunately doesn’t prioritize the types of tools and data that Local SEO’s need to do their job. But our job always was and has been to do our job with the tools that we have available. That won’t change.