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Ask HN: How can I get Google Maps to stop routing people to the wrong address?

22 points by burlesona ↗ HN
As a quirk of street layouts and house numbering, the house I live in has the same street name and number as another house about 20 minutes away in a different town. Ie both addresses start “123 Foo Street,” but then have two different cities and zip codes.

Google Maps does not understand this. If you enter any part of my address, even the entire address including city and zip code, it still routes to the other city.

This causes an astonishing number of problems. Visitors getting lost is the least of it: Apple Maps works fine, and if people don’t have Apple we just tell them another close by address that works correctly.

But whenever we get deliveries, technicians, etc. it doesn’t work. I can’t get an Uber. Our school district had a bunch of problems because some stupid computer of theirs uses Google to geolocate us and considers us out of district: it took dozens of calls and complaints to get our kids enrolled in the school walking distance from the house.

I have tried suggesting an edit to both addresses, but that doesn’t work. The full address is correct for both locations, the problem is something to do with Google’s autocomplete ranking, I guess it ranks the other city first and “corrects” anything you enter, including the full city and zip code.

Anyone know any way to fix this kind of thing?

5 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 19.5 ms ] thread
RainbowFriends
The way to get an issue like this fixed is a post on Hacker News with an sufficient number of upvotes to get to the front page for a long enough time. Good luck!
bell-cot
Cynical Reaction: Get a lawyer to write a one-page "You might be able to sue Google for misdirecting you here if..." letter, make a bunch of copies of that, and put 'em in one of those clear-plastic-box-on-a-post things (which Realtors use for flyers about a house for sale) at the front of your lot. With a sign (large enough to be easily read on Google Street View) explaining what the letters are about.
jaclaz
Problem with this plan is that you have to do this in front of the lot where the other house in the other city is.

Maybe the owners there would like the idea (since they get a lot of people at their property by mistake) but maybe they don't care.

simne
You could add other address (nearby, which work right) and tell people to get there.