Maps will soon let you use a nickname and select an alternative profile picture for online reviews, so you can rate a business without linking it to full name and Google profile photo. Google says it will monitor for "suspicious and fake reviews," and every review is still associated with an account on Google's backend, which it believes will discourage bad actors.
Now, when users search for places in Maps like restaurants, hotels, or concert venues, they'll see a new "know before you go" tips section that will surface important information about the place. For instance, it might tell users the best way to book a reservation, what secret menu items are, what the best place to park is, and more. Users can click on each tip to get more information.
Say you're driving in the left lane of a US highway and your exit is up ahead on the right side. "With live lane guidance, just glance at your dash display to see exactly which lane you can be in at any given moment," Google says in a blog post. (Of course, you can also look at the road to figure out this information.)
It looks like you will activate the power saving mode by pressing your phone's power button. That sounds strange at first, but perhaps the idea here is that this would replace you turning the screen off entirely in order to save power? Anyway, once it's on, the interface becomes monochrome, and extremely minimalistic, as you can see in the screenshots below.
If you were driving around Toronto Saturday and checked Google Maps for the fastest route, you may have seen the Don Valley Parkway was closed. The only problem: it wasn't. Just before noon, the City of Toronto said in a post on X that staff had been getting reports that Google Maps was erroneously showing the east end highway was closed.
Earlier this year the Welsh village of Cyffylliog in Denbighshire was beset by an unexpected stream of traffic after an Aldi supermarket appeared on a map. The name of a farm just below the village, home to about 500 people, was changed on Google Maps to the name of the supermarket, leading to an influx of people attempting to do a weekly shop, and a milk tanker getting stuck. Google said it worked around the clock to identify suspicious behaviour, and corrected the listing.
If neither Google Business Profile nor Chain stores work for you, you can select up to 10 locations from Google Maps to link with your Ads account. These Google Maps locations must be yours, or they may be disapproved. Go to Location manager within the Tool menu, under the Shared library. Select the plus button, and choose "Our locations". Select Continue. You can enter the physical address or a key phrase to search your locations.
Google Maps features a Live View augmented reality tool, aiding pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport users by overlaying navigation directions on real-world environments.
46% of all Google searches are local. 76% of "near me" searches lead to a store visit within 24 hours, making Google Maps essential for cannabis retail.
