The Map Pin in the Wrong Place

Where the directions end

A customer searches for your business, taps directions, and follows the blue line. It ends in a lane behind the building, beside a steel door and a row of bins.

Or at the far end of a strip mall, outside the wrong unit. Or on the neighbouring lot, up somebody else's driveway.

The directions were not wrong. They led exactly to the pin on your Google My Business listing, and the pin is in the wrong place.

Most owners never notice, because they have never needed directions to their own business.

How a pin ends up there

When a listing is created, the pin is placed from the street address. Google works out where that address probably sits, and on most streets it guesses well.

The guess fails in predictable places.

• Corner lots, where the address is on one street and the door on another.
• Strip malls, where units often share one point on the map.
• Business parks, with one civic address and a dozen similar buildings.
• Upstairs offices, reached by a street door the map knows nothing about.
• Rural properties, where the address point sits far from the gate.
• New developments, built since the map was last updated.

The first catches many businesses in town centres. The civic address follows the lot, the door follows the shopfronts, and the pin follows the address.

Why directions follow the pin

A navigation app needs a point on a road to send people to. It usually picks the stretch of road nearest the pin.

So a pin sitting toward the back of a lot can send drivers down the lane instead of along the main street, even when the address itself is correct.

A pin in the middle of a large building leaves the route to pick whichever side's road is closest.

The person following the line has no reason to doubt it until they are standing at the wrong door, late, and phoning you.

Checking it from a phone

Do it the way a customer would: on a phone, from somewhere else, with no local knowledge.

Search for the business by name in Google Maps, open the listing, and start directions from a few blocks away. Look at where the route ends, not at where the pin appears to be.

Switch to satellite view to see which side of the building that is. Street View at the end of the route shows what a driver will see on arrival.

If people walk to you, try the walking route as well. It can end somewhere different again.

Moving the pin

The fix is in Google My Business. Open the address in the info section; the editing screen includes a map where the pin can be moved into place.

Zoom in on the satellite view and put it on the entrance customers should use, not in the middle of the roof.

Changes like this can go through a review before they appear, so check again from a phone a few days later.

If the street or building itself is drawn wrongly, report that through the feedback option in Google Maps instead.

Photographs of the entrance

A correct pin gets people to the right spot. A photograph gets them through the right door.

Add exterior photographs to the listing taken from where customers actually arrive: the street door from across the road, the sign above it, the passage that leads to it.

Take them in daylight, straight on, with the door clearly in frame. The door and its number matter more than a grand view of the building.

If the entrance is hard to find, say so in words too: one sentence in the listing's description naming the street the door is on and what sits beside it.

A worked example

A physiotherapy clinic occupies the second floor of a corner building in a town centre. Its street door is on the main street, between a pharmacy and a bakery.

The building's civic address is on the side street, and the pin sat toward the back of the lot. Directions took drivers into the lane behind, where the only door is a locked fire exit.

Patients arrived late, or phoned the front desk from the lane, and staff put it down to a confusing block.

A new patient mentioned the route on the way out. The clinic manager followed the directions on a phone and ended up at the fire exit.

The pin moved to the street door. Two photographs went up, the door with its sign and the lobby inside, and the appointment reminder email gained one line saying where to find the door.

Your website and the other maps

The listing is not the only map customers use.

A map embedded on your contact page may have been made from the bare address, and will carry the old mistake. Rebuilding it from the listing itself shows the corrected spot with your business name.

Apple keeps its own business listings for Apple Maps, which is what opens when many iPhone users tap an address. Bing has its own too. Each needs the same check.

Keeping it right

A pin that is right today can move. Anyone can suggest an edit to a listing on Google Maps, and some suggestions are accepted.

Google My Business usually flags changes like these in the dashboard. Read those notices rather than dismissing them, and check the pin when one appears.

A move to another unit, or a front door closed for renovations, needs the pin and the listing updated too, even when the address barely changes.

The counter-case

Many businesses will find their pin is fine.

A shop on a straight street, with its door on the side the address names, usually gets an accurate pin from the address alone. The check takes five minutes and changes nothing.

A business that always goes to the customer, such as a mobile mechanic or a cleaner, has less riding on the pin. Many hide the address and show a service area instead.

Still, follow your own directions on a phone once, and move the pin to the door if they end anywhere else.

This week

1. Search your business by name in Google Maps.
2. Start directions from a few blocks away.
3. Check where the route ends in satellite view.
4. Move the pin to the customer entrance.
5. Photograph the door from where people arrive.
6. Describe the entrance in one plain sentence.
7. Check Apple Maps and your contact page map.

Step three is where the problem shows itself. A pin can look close enough on a zoomed-out map while its route ends on the wrong street entirely.

Keeping the listing accurate when plans change suddenly is covered in closing for snow and telling customers.

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.