Yahoo Maps - Better than Google Maps?!?

DJB

Hi,

Was doing a bit of browsing last night and came across Yahoo Maps. I zoomed down to Navan to see what their coverage was like cause Google Maps has an out of date coverage of the area and I was pleasently suprised to see that it covers the area quiet well. I then looked around the area and was once again pleasently suprised to see good coverage of towns (even small ones) being covered in greater detail (where google has only got the national roads... yahoo has the housing estates).

I still prefer the google maps interface but this seems like a good alternative. The Yahoo interface is actually growing on me quite quickly actually. It comes in a flash version and dhtml/ajax version and you can also use an API to embed into your own site, just like google maps api. I might integrate it into one or two of my sites that I use google maps on.

Anyone got any thoughts? Anyone use Yahoo Maps? Do you think Google only need to flick a switch and their coverage of Ireland will be this good overnight? If so, anyone know when this will be or why they haven't done it yet... they've just announced an extra 500 jobs in Ireland... ya think they'd increase the mapping coverage of the country since it is obviously available out there. Uh oh... now I'm ranting on (as usual I hear a few of you say)...

Here's the links anyway...

Yahoo - Ireland Map: http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&trf=0&lon=-8.014526&lat=53.504385&mag=11

Yahoo - Navan Coverage: http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&trf=0&lon=-6.682992&lat=53.645121&mag=4
Google - Navan Coverage: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=14&ll=53.64535,-6.687326&spn=0.033224,0.080509&om=1

Spot the difference? I'm sure it's like this for many other towns around the country!?!

Rgds,

Dave

HelterSkelter

I was just looking at Yahoo Maps the other night and it does seems to have more detail. I thought it was a lot slower than Google maps though. And I like the google maps interface much better. I hope Google get the finger out and add more detail.

Rollo Tamasi

I thought this was about yahoo and google sitemaps.
This isn't really webmaster related.

DJB

It is webmaster related. The reason I was talking about it hear is because I embed google maps api into sites I develop. If someone has used it or maybe currently uses the google maps api, I'd like to hear ppl's opinions.

I see your point though... I should of been more clear. Should have said "Anyone use Yahoo Maps API?" instead of "Anyone use Yahoo Maps?"

On a side point... do yahoo use sitemaps like google sitemaps (i.e. google webmasters tools)?

Rollo Tamasi

yup, yahoo site explorer looks the business. Since using it on one of my sites slurp is outranking googlebot at about 12:1 for activity.

DJB

I've just blogged this, if anyone is interested in reading it:

http://www.davidbehan.com/blog/?p=15

tomED

Microsoft's http://local.live.com is a good alternative to Google maps too!!

I find this much better than both!

Tom