Google maps showing incorrect data in Ireland

Tautas

Hi all,

I'd like to share with you something weird I've spotted about google maps about a week ago. I've been posting the issue all over the place in hope to get some attention to it.

I would guess that since last Google maps update about a month ago they changed the way counties are considered in Ireland. The issue is most noticeable in the big cities with area names. At the moment all area names in Dublin are gone and it is the county councils that are used instead. I've no idea who approved such change but in my opinion that is false information. I've contacted Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and Dublin councils last week in order to get a comment on weather there have been any changes to physical addresses in Dublin but it seems that they had all split for Christmas break early this year and we'll have to wait till January for answer on that.

I'll outline a few quick examples on where the issue arises for me. For example if I live in Blackrock, Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland - at the moment on google maps it is called Stillorgan, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County, Ireland. Its not even part of Dublin any more! If you go to Dublin city center and click RMB on any of the main city streets and select 'Whats here', google will tell you its 14-15 Wellington Quay, Dublin 2, Co. Dublin City, Ireland. Since when do we have a county called 'Dublin City'???.

You would think ah well, big deal... few names are a bit different. But I think the issue is massive. To start with it is effecting my business which uses google maps for estimating distance between two addresses. At the moment the service quite often fails because it can not find the addresses as people know them. That's one of the main reasons why I'm trying to report the issue, but on the other hands you have to think of other businesses that might be affected by this.

Imagine if that broke something like Daft.ie? Imagine 50k ads loosing their locations on maps... Well, good for Daft they didn't relay on Google's automatic service and they chose to hardcode the location for each ad. I've noticed another piece of software that has been affected by the issue though. Its a simple app for iPhone called 'Around Me'. What it does is pulls up search results from google for a selected category (lets say 'pubs') and displays them on google maps so you can see businesses around you. There is a significantly lower amount of results it is displaying today in comparison to few months ago. The only reason I see for that is that business address details can not be matched to google maps system as they do not correspond.

And that is just few examples... just think how many other businesses or services of similar nature might have been affected by this issue!

Could somebody please have a look at this problem and confirm weather I'm thinking correctly of it. If any of you know a quick and effective way to report this issue to Google, please be so kind and share it here as I'm getting desperate to get this resolved as soon as possible.

Thanks for your time,
Tautas

3DataModem

Google maps is based on the actual administrative counties (Dun Laoighaire Rathdown, Fingal, Dublin City, etc).

In my opinion this is just another reason why we need proper postcodes in thus country.

Tautas

Hi 3DataModem,

Thanks for such a quick reply. I see what you're saying but the issue still remains of google maps not corresponding to physical postal addresses since last update to the system.

Here's another example:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=53.302307,-6.179466&num=1&t=h&sll=53.33949,-6.256349&sspn=0.004254,0.011362&ie=UTF8&ll=53.300499,-6.178758&spn=0.004257,0.011362&z=17

The address the system is giving for selected location is:
2-25 Rock Hill, Stillorgan, Co. Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Ireland

Where a postal address for this location should be:
2-25 Rock Hill, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland
At least this is the way everyone would know it.

Now if I put in '2-25 Rock Hill, Stillorgan, Co. Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Ireland' into google maps search bar and search for it the system still can't give me an exact location... It displays this message: 'Rock Hill, Stillorgan, Co. near Co. Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, Ireland' and gives me suggestions for businesses in 10km radius as pretty much the whole South Co. Dublin is considered to be part of Stillorgan at the moment.

If I put in 'beechwood court, stillorgan' into search it finds the address in Killiney rather than Stillorgan. Thats another example where the system fails for street names that exist in more than one are.

Therefore what I'm trying to say is that since last update google has broken the maps system for ireland and Dublin in particular. It just simply does not work properly...

Tautas

Tautas

I've done some more research into the issues with google maps I've been having and can identify 2 more areas where it fails to work properly/correctly.

1. Reverse geocoding.

This technique produces undesired results/addresses by google maps. It displays results in the new format I described before which just don't make that much sense to me.

2. Google maps directions

The system fails to get directions if you use area names for Dublin city. Lets say I try to go from 'Sandyford' to 'Main st, Blackrock, Dublin'.

The result is that it asks me to confirm what exactly did I mean by saying Sandyford and displays some 5 results around it to choose from. Same happens in Blackrock even though I've included full address that would be understandable to anyone living in the city. As the matter of fact the results are even worse here stretching some 50km around the city with suggested addresses.

Now I am sorry, but does that sound normal to everyone? Or maybe it is just me going mental while trying to highlight a problem that does not exist?

none

The postcodes are indeed crucial so perhaps this is one of the reasons Google doesn't like mapping this country well. One example that I mentioned earlier is that despites all those quirky camera-laden Astras traversing Dublin last year Google didn't manage to fix Ubrary Road (in Dun Laoghaire;)) which is actually hardly dependent on any coordinate system.

Tautas

A street is a street, None, but messing up the map for entire Dublin and its suburbs it a bit of a serious cock-up in my opinion... I'll tell you exactly where the problem is with Google maps in Ireland.

How many counties did Republic of Ireland have last time you checked? Wrong - according to Google there are 33 of them! They assume that every single county council is a county in this country. That's whats messing up the maps in Dublin area at the moment. The worst thing is that its been like that a for few months now and nobody seems to care...

none

My point was if they don't care spelling a street properly then how can you expect any precision on a bigger level? Ireland is partly to blame here, of course, but Google is without a doubt more than just ignorant to the country of its European headquarter.

p

Have you contacted Google about this?

Tautas

None:

Ubrary road is an obvious human error as 'Li' does look a bit like U letter. If it has been addressed to Google a couple of years ago, then its a shame to be still there. Google has created a tool within the maps to report mistakes like that but unfortunately it only works for States for the moment.

p:

I've written up some 6 posts on Google help system and 2 messages to Google through their help platform. Unfortunately there has been no response from them yet.

Do you know of any better or other way to contact them?

Shtanto

p wrote: »

Have you contacted Google about this?

I gave it a go, but it's like wading through sticky tape jungle. Obviously, it'd be fixed by now if we could do it ourselves.

I'm aware of a good few errors in Dublin, e.g. the Yellow House marker is off and the red cow is finished now, but they haven't updated it yet.

I guess the OSI don't want to hand over their only money spinner Carte Blanche. They've been hoarding the maps for years.

Niamh.W

For the past several years, the Tallaght Square Shopping Centre was way off. It pointed to some little forrest outside Tallaght. I reported that about 10 times within 3 years, never got fixed. But now it seems they have fixed that with the last update.

I think Google Maps for Ireland is really bad. It rarely finds a destination on the first go. Maybe it is because we dont have Postal Codes here. I lived in France and Germany for several years and Zip codes are just life savers now and then.

According to an EU study, Ireland is in the bottom 3 when it comes to secure mail and delivery time. Compare to other EU countries Ireland is suppose to be really slow. 1-5 Days for a letter within Ireland. Compare with Germany where a letter take 0-2 days. (If dropped at post office before 8am, its delivered by 4pm within the same day if its the city).
And our lovely Mail men seem to lose more post than in most other EU countries.

I myself blame the Non-Zip code system we have here as well as the unprofessionalism that we have here in Ireland.

Shtanto

I'd love to be able to put slangy terms into google maps like 'dole office' and have it work out the details.

Has anyone got a name or an email address? I'd like to get the mess fixed if at all possible.

Hosting

Overall the Goolge maps in Ireland are hit and miss, you just have to keep trying to get a result.:D

garydubh

Hosting wrote: »

Overall the Goolge maps in Ireland are hit and miss, you just have to keep trying to get a result.:D

Perhaps the answer is here

Elmo

I don't think it has anything to do with post codes. Google maps are all over the place. I was looking for a business park and it sent me to a housing estate no were close to the business park.

Surely if Google maps has the Business park listed as the name of the business part it should bring me too that business regardless of the post code. After all I am never going to go looking for a post code.