Google Map Maker Is Gone and the Map Is Still Editable

What closed in March

At the end of March, Google shut down Map Maker, the separate tool volunteers used to edit roads, places and business details on Google Maps.

Editing did not stop. It moved into Google Maps itself, where every business listing carries a link inviting anyone to suggest an edit.

For a business, that means one thing: the information on your listing can be changed by people who are not you.

Most of those changes are well meant, and some are correct. The rest are what this post is about.

Who suggests changes

• Customers who found you closed and assumed the hours were wrong.
• Local Guides, volunteers who earn points for adding and checking details.
• Former owners or staff working from what used to be true.
• Competitors, occasionally, marking a rival as moved or closed.
• Other sources Google draws on, such as directories and websites.

The first is the commonest and the hardest to blame. Someone arrives on a day you closed early, finds the door locked and reports new hours, and nobody meant any harm.

What can be changed

Almost everything on a listing can be suggested: the name, the category, the address and pin, the phone number, the website, the hours, and whether the business is open at all.

Suggestions are checked before they go live, by Google's systems and sometimes by other users. Some are rejected. Others go live on your listing, sometimes without the owner being asked.

Hours and the closed status do the most damage, because they decide whether someone sets out at all.

Why owners do not notice

Owners rarely look at their listing the way customers do. They see it in the Google My Business dashboard, if they log in at all, not on a phone in Maps on the way over.

Notification emails go to whoever set up the account, which may be a former manager, a web designer from years ago or an address nobody checks.

So a change can sit on the listing for weeks. The first sign is usually a customer saying they thought you closed at three.

A worked example

A coffee shop on a corner of a residential street, open seven days, extended its weekend hours to six in the evening when spring arrived and changed them in Google My Business the same day.

A few weeks later, the listing showed weekend closing at three again. Someone had suggested the change, perhaps a customer who came by after an early closing for a private event, and it had been accepted.

The owner had not logged in since setting the hours, and the notification email went to an old address belonging to the previous manager.

The first anyone knew was a regular mentioning one Saturday afternoon that she had nearly not come, because Maps said the shop was closed.

Putting it right took ten minutes: the hours corrected in Google My Business, the account email changed to one the owner reads, and a monthly reminder to check the listing on a phone.

The hours on the website were checked against the listing the same afternoon, so anyone or anything comparing the two now finds the same answer.

Correcting a change

As the verified owner, correct the listing through Google My Business rather than through the public suggest an edit link. It is the most direct route Google offers an owner.

The dashboard may also flag changes Google itself has made to the listing. Open each one, then accept it or put it right.

If a wrong change keeps coming back, the cause is often elsewhere on the web: an old directory entry, a former address on another site, or your own website saying something different.

Holiday and special hours

Many suggested edits start on holidays. A customer finds you closed on Victoria Day, or open late before a long weekend, and reports the regular hours as wrong.

Special hours can be entered in Google My Business for particular dates. Entering them before each holiday answers the question before anyone suggests an answer of their own.

The Canada Day long weekend is the next one worth setting, and it is a good moment to start the habit.

The pin and the entrance

The pin matters as much as the address. Directions in Maps lead to the pin, and a pin moved to the back of a building or the wrong side of a plaza sends drivers to a loading door.

Open the listing in Maps, zoom in, and check that the pin sits on your entrance. If it does not, move it in Google My Business.

A monthly look, as a customer

The habit that catches all of this is short. Once a month, sign out of your Google account on a phone, search Maps for your business by name and by what you do, and read the listing.

Check the name, hours, phone, website, pin and the line under the name saying open or closed. Then do the same for any second location.

Five minutes, twelve times a year. It is worth giving to one named person, so it does not depend on someone remembering.

The counter-case

Not every suggested edit is a problem. Customers sometimes catch real errors: a phone number that changed, a second location that closed, a category that never fitted.

A business that rarely changes its hours and has a long-established listing may see few edits at all, and a quarterly check may be enough.

Still, the listing is often the first thing a customer sees about your business. Check it as a customer would, every month, and correct changes through Google My Business.

The first check

1. Sign out of your Google account on a phone.
2. Search Maps for your business by name.
3. Check the hours and the pin.
4. Make sure the account email reaches someone who reads it.
5. Correct errors in Google My Business.
6. Enter special hours before the next holiday.
7. Repeat the check every month.

Step four is the one that turns a monthly check into an early warning, since a notice about a changed listing is useless if it arrives in a former manager's inbox.

What else a listing can show customers before a first visit is covered in a Street View tour inside your business.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.