I know foursquare uses google maps api, but how do they retrieve all the business locations from google maps? Do they save every location on their database or just access it when a user checks in? sorry if i have confused you, but im so curious!! :))
I did some research on this, what they do is they use the google maps api, to retrieve information for business locations, and geolocation, address, business etc, if someone deos check-in to a location, it gets saved into thier database. This prevents them from saving a lot of irrelevant locations.
Another thing is, users or businesses can create new locations if they wanted to, because not all location will be on the google maps!!
Hope that helps!
Related
I'm trying to understand a problem that I'm having at the moment,
I created a Google map on my web app so my users can search for their businesses,
It appears that they can search and find only businesses with a precise location,
Service area businesses cannot be found using my map,
This is the link to my map on my server: My Map
Then I found a Google link that I can find also the service area businesses,
This is the link to the Google Map: Google Map
I compared (vimdiff) the source codes of the two links and they are the same,
So my question is why I can't see service area businesses on my map ?
Service Area Businesses are not available for Places API users and this is Google's decision. There was a feature request to enable SABs in Places API, but unfortunately Google rejected it.
You can read more here: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/35828187
I copy the last answer from Google:
The Places API team has reviewed this feature request and decided against including Service Area Businesses results in API responses.
Places API mission is to enable developers to help users find relevant places to visit. Since Service Area Businesses are not places users can visit, and therefore do not belong in the Places API.
The ability to find Service Area Businesses have been removed from https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/places-placeid-finder to be consistent with the funtionality generally available in the Places API. Google My Business users can still find Place IDs for their Service Area Businesses using a dedicated PlaceID Lookup Tool at https://developers.google.com/my-business/content/faq#associate_locations_using_placeid_1
We do acknowledge there is demand for this feature and will look into accommodating it in the future. To this end, we would appreciate if you shared specific use cases and business needs that this feature would enable for you.
Referring to the Google My Business find place ID page, they use their own Cloud project where this feature is available, but no way for Google Maps API users to get this.
I hope my answer clarifies your doubt!
I was trying to embed google plus reviews on my website using the google places api. The following link is the process I used to set this up.
http://gurutechnolabs.tumblr.com/post/112214772991/how-to-embed-google-reviews-using-google-places
When I enter https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/textsearch/json?key=yourAPIKey&query=YourPlace into the browser I don't get any data when I enter my business name. I do get data when I enter a different business name. I suspect the issue is my business address isn't public as I serve customers only at their location. Is this the issue and any way to use this feature with a hidden address? Thanks in advance.
If your business is defined as Service Area Buiseness, it will not be accessible via Places API search or Places API autocomplete.
If this is feasible, try to change the type of the business in Google My Business. Not sure if it will be possible to extract reviews by a place ID, however, it's not easy to figure out what is the place ID of your business.
Can I have the link to your business in Google Plus for further investigation?
I'm sorry, I'm extremely new to google map, thus I need some help here.
I want to store and retrieve locations that I've input and display in the google map.
Any startup for me to get me going? Thanks.
Try Google Earth, it will save locations in kml, and and you can feed data to it from an external source. You can also place marks in Google maps if you are signed in. Other wise you didn't give enough information
The website I am working on should keep a list of many businesses located at different cities. I add those business manually into my database, and later need to display them with Google Maps using markers (so the main purpose of the map is to display a list of businesses). The map is public and no fees are charged. I am not retrieving businesses' information from Google. What I do not understand is whether I am allowed to use Google Maps to display a list of businesses or not.
I can not quite understand this point of their ToS
10.2 (b) No Business, Residential, or Telephone Listings Services. You must not display business listings Content in any Maps API Implementation that has the primary purpose of making available business, residential address, or telephone directory listings.
Does this basically say that I can implement a service to list businesses, but I cannot query Google to obtain information about other businesses and add them to my own list?
Thank you
Firstly I am not a lawyer but I have taken a good look at the Google Maps licensing and I would read it the opposite way that you have read it. I think that displaying business listings on a Google map violates their ToS.
10.2 Restrictions on the Types of Applications that You are Permitted to Build with the Maps API(s). Except as explicitly permitted in Section 8 (Licenses from Google to You) or the Maps APIs Documentation, you must not (nor may you permit anyone else to) do any of the following:
....
(b) No Business, Residential, or Telephone Listings Services. You must
not display business listings Content in any Maps API Implementation
that has the primary purpose of making available business, residential
address, or telephone directory listings.
It seems to me the criteria that is being evaluated is the type of service you are offering and if the type of offering is a business listing service (which it sounds like you service is) then you are not allowed to use the Google map API. This makes sense as it would be hard to differentiate that sort of business listing from the service that Google provide.
However, there are a number of free options you could use to put markers on maps that you should look at which avoid this issue. These include:
OpenLayers
GeoExt
PolyMaps
Leaflet
As you have created your own database I suggest you to create a web service of it and then use that data to display it on map.
Refer this link..This one is the best for your question. It explain each every steps from DB to Google Maps.
https://developers.google.com/maps/articles/phpsqlsearch_v3
Another thing which you can do is that you can upload the bulk data on Google's Places and then you can use Google's Places API to fetch the data. But one thing which you i would like to point is that if you use Places API then it will provide you maximum 20 results. Refer this links.
Bulk data upload
Hope this will help you....
I wish to develop a site mashing up user generated geodata content with geodatacontent from Google search (Locations of niche businesses entered and recommend/commented by the users as well as the search result though Google Maps for the same businesses, presented on a map. Users can grade/comment on the Google Search result as well, I store the comments and grades etc.)
Any tips as to whether try to use the Data API or just keep all the data in my own datastore?