Google Maps

Google has added a new Q&A features to Google Maps allowing users to submit questions to owners and allowing these to respond.

 This Q&A feature is tied to the associated Google My Business account.

Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that allows businesses to create and manage their Google Business listing. These listings must represent a physical location that a customer can visit. A Google Business listing appears when customers search for businesses either on Google Maps or in Google SERPs. The accuracy of these listings is a local ranking factor.

Google Maps began as a C++ desktop program developed by brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen in Australia at Where 2 Technologies. In October 2004, the company was acquired by Google, which converted it into a web application. After additional acquisitions of a geospatial data visualization company and a real-time traffic analyzer, Google Maps was launched in February 2005.[2] The service’s front end utilizes JavaScript, XML, and Ajax. Google Maps offers an API that allows maps to be embedded on third-party websites,[3] and offers a locator for businesses and other organizations in numerous countries around the world. Google Map Maker allowed users to collaboratively expand and update the service’s mapping worldwide but was discontinued from March 2017. However, crowdsourced contributions to Google Maps were not discontinued as the company announced those features would be transferred to the Google Local Guides program,[4] although users that are not Local Guides can still contribute.

Google Maps’ satellite view is a «top-down» or bird’s-eye view; most of the high-resolution imagery of cities is aerial photography taken from aircraft flying at 800 to 1,500 feet (240 to 460 m), while most other imagery is from satellites.[5] Much of the available satellite imagery is no more than three years old and is updated on a regular basis, according to a 2011 report.[6] Google Maps previously used a variant of the Mercator projection, and therefore could not accurately show areas around the poles.[7] In August 2018, the desktop version of Google Maps was updated to show a 3D globe. It is still possible to switch back to the 2D map in the settings.

Google Maps for mobile devices was first released in 2006; the latest versions feature GPS turn-by-turn navigation along with dedicated parking assistance features. By 2013, it was found to be the world’s most popular smartphone app, with over 54% of global smartphone owners using it.[8] In 2017, the app was reported to have two billion users on Android, along with several other Google services including YouTube, Chrome, Gmail, Search, and Google Play.