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Morning
Whenever I search for something on Google Maps, it drops the red marker about half mile out.
And then navigates me to the red marker not the street I'm looking for.
It does this on my phone and laptop, also on wifes phone.
Any ideas?
Stop trying to visit Area 51?
Is it giving you the centre of a postcode. Some are pretty big.
I'd end up in Area 54 using it now.
Not giving me the centre of postcode, no.
It tried to send me to some random point in a field yesterday. And using my parents postcode as an example, it drops the marker on a footpath a couple of streets away.
If you just use the post code it tends to drop a pin in the geographic centroid of the polygon that represents the postcode. In dense urban areas it's not an issue but in rural areas it can be a few km off.
Use the full address if you have it. The Google GeoCoder API is quite good in western Europe.
You've not got it set to something like "use lat/long" have you?
A mate had this on his GPS, two conflicting settings - receiving fixes in OS grid ref but trying to output in Lat/Long or something.
Postcodes are rarely accurate to more than a street anyway, some of them especially in rural areas, will show up a mile away.
I'm just using the postcode, its easier for work than typing in full address, if I type in full address its fine. This is in an urban setting not rural. Its not the end of the world, I just use it now and then for work, and yesterday got me lost for 20 minutes.
It never used to be like it, its as if something has changed.
Anything else worth using other than google?
They probably changed the algorithm for determining where you meant when you enter a post code, as has been said the area can be large. Maybe they're actually being more accurate and the bounding box is larger as it includes the buildings instead of the just the road, etc.
Bringing back memories of when my inlaws wanted to meet us at a fairly remote beach and insisted on just entering the postcode and not actually looking at a map, then were shocked to discover that the postcode takes them to the farm two miles inland.
This happened to us last weekend; we drove right past the address and ended up at the end of a lane half way up a big hill with nowhere to turn around and notices everywhere saying "Keep out".
Anything else worth using other than google?
Postcodes are postcodes, different mapping software isn't going to change that. You're giving it a general address and getting a general result, if you want somewhere specific within that postcode then nothing short of telepathy or guesswork will get you that unless you actually enter a specific location.
Some postcode units are huge - GX11 1AA is Gibraltar, all of it. I think the British bits of Antarctica is a single postcode too and that's like half a million square miles (cos they're loosely based on population and there's no bugger there).
If you sent a package to "John Smith, London" and it failed to arrive then changing couriers isn't going to help.
I agree postcodes are postcodes etc but around here they refer to a street, not a big area. My street is a different postcode to the next street over and were only a hundred yards away.
I've installed Navmii on my phone now and that works correctly. Just wondering what's gone wrong with Google maps for me.