Monday, June 02, 2014

Google Maps Monday


Last week Google released the latest update to its Panda filter for Google search. The immediate effect for me was a 50% cut in search traffic from Google search to Google Maps Mania. Incredibly Google's Panda filter has resulted in Google Maps Mania losing 90% of traffic in just 18 months.

In a fit of anger I reported on Google+ that I was going to stop reporting on Google Maps on Google Maps Mania. You can read some of the reactions to that decision on this Hacker News thread.

Overall the responses have been mostly positive. However I did receive a small number of e-mails from frustrated developers, particularly from those who had Google Maps visualizations ready to release and hadn't seen my original post on Google+. In that post I gave developers 24 hours to submit their maps before I dropped coverage of Google Maps.

It isn't fair that my frustrations with Google search should punish these Google Maps API users so I've decided that today will now be Google Maps Monday. Today I shall be clearing the decks and reviewing some of those Google Maps that didn't make my very tight deadline.

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