Google Maps Lacks Park Review Function
Wednesday 16 Jan 2008
Greetings from inside the SEOigloo!
This is just a short note I’m jotting down out of frustration that Google Maps, for some reason I can’t guess at, does not seem to enable users to leave reviews of State or National parks. I checked for this function on a handful of parks I visit, and that are listed in Google maps, and I got nada. I don’t get it.
The NPS and various state park services, unfortunately, fall far short of receiving an A+ from me when it comes to the pages they have for their parks. I mean…seriously…I could make a whole website full of fascinating facts, photos, trail maps, reviews, weather warnings, etc. for even a single nice park. The situation the rangers and their webmasters have got going on leaves much to be desired, so I see the abundant potential good in Google Maps enabling user reviews for these places of great national interest.
If you were on vacation and trying to pick between 3-4 local parks, wouldn’t it be cool to find a review that said, “Wait until you see the gorgeous lake at this park!” or “This place has a serious rattlesnake problem. Don’t bring the dog or the kids”? Basically, such UGC would accomplish the goal of improving the relevance of Google taking the trouble to list parks. Hey, Google, how about it? If you’ll enable it, I’ll personally be reviewing every wonderful park my treehugging husband and I have hiked in. I’d be happy to make that effort.
Is there some reason I’m overlooking that would explain why Google does not allow reviews of U.S. parks?
7 comments Wednesday 16 Jan 2008 | admin | Local SEO
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Hi Miriam,
If I do a search on Muir Woods San Francisco, and click upon more info in the left column, and then review tab in the window that pops up, I see a link that says “write a review.”
Clicking upon that brings me to a “my maps” signin. After logging in, I was able to search for a park local to me, and leave a review.
Once I published, I could see that there was a review because it showed the number of reviews (1), but wouldn’t show me the review.
I wonder if they verify those before they become visible. Intersting that you need to login to even try to leave a review, but I think that it’s easier for them to avoid problems if the do it that way.
Any particular parks that you were trying to add?
“I mean…seriously…I could make a whole website full of fascinating facts, photos, trail maps, reviews, weather warnings, etc. for even a single nice park.”
Funny you should say that as I completely concur, and as the past webmaster for the Florida State Parks, that’s exactly what I did. So far the site allows for registration and display of photographs for a community contest, property reviews/experiences, Blogs, area links, and a link back to the official site for the property.
Please check it out and I’m actually looking for help in it’s development and design!
We just recently signed a contract with the California State Parks Foundation to manage a gallery and photo contest for visitors of their state parks…so it’s going well, but could certainly use many other helpful features like Google maps and such.
Thanks for taking a look! http://www.myparkphotos.com
And the California gallery may be viewed at http://www.calparks.org/gallery.html
Hi Bill,
Three of the parks I wanted to leave a review for were these:
Jack London State Historic Park
Sugarloaf Ridge State Park
Calaveras Big Trees State Park
Signed into my Google account, when I search for these 3 parks, I am shown their location on the map, but the only option being given in the left bar is to make the park my default location, and the popup window gives this data:
Get Directions To Here, From Here, Save to My Maps Search Nearby
But no “write a review”.
If you have a moment, would you take a look at these 3 from your location, Bill? I’d really appreciate it. I searched just now for Muir Wood San Francisco and am, indeed, seeing the ability to leave a review, but not for my 3 searches above. Hmm…
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. It is always such a pleasure to have you stop by.
Miriam
Hello James!
How wonderful of you to take the time to leave a comment. That’s terrific to look at the efforts you’ve made. What fun…photo contests! Truly, our parks are treasures. I absolutely love to see what you’re doing…and it must have been fascinating to work on the Florida project. The birds there are so amazing…the Roseate Spoonbill, the Flamingo, all the Egrets, Herons. Wow! And…you’ve got alligators, too.
I’m looking forward to speaking with you further, James and will be getting in touch soon. It’s absolutely marvelous to see these efforts and to know that my own state of California is going to start benefiting from them.
I really appreciate you stopping by.
Miriam
Hi Miriam, can’t tell you how wonderful it was to see your post on our blog with a link to bring me here…It’s truly a breath of much-needed fresh air from the media madness endured from a cast of characters who ‘can’t see the forest through the trees’ & who’d prefer we ‘take a hike’ than report what we’re seeing re: media msgs. translating into K-5 behavior, cues, socialization and such.
Strongly feel we need to use the power/influence of media for POSITIVE pursuits…and just taught a ‘green media’ digital session at our middle school’s eco-club yesterday to get kids to use media to springboard into nature…(from pathfinders and tracking pawprints to forest facts and overcoming ‘nature deficit disorder’ from time to time.
Being a park fan, your mobile mapping reviews would be most helpful, and I KNOW green teens would love a mobile mashup to access on a cell too…my nephews hiked abroad w/pdas accessing Lonely Planet’s ‘thornbush’ to find out paths to steer clear of (bandits/dangers and such) so ALL of this feeds into the digital mix.
On the flip side, you might like this piece I wrote on what happens when urbanity and the wilderness collide with the net generation, called “Shaping Youth Through Nature, Media Unplugged” http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=100
about a challenging nonprofit program called “Summer Search” for ‘at risk’ kids to steer toward new directions in sort of an ‘outward bound meets Freedom Writers’ style, where they’re stripped of ALL their media gear (and suddenly these cityslickers are ‘not so tough’
Thanks again for stopping by; you have NO idea how nourishing and appreciated your kind comments were amidst this blast zone of a hypefest where misinformation is flinging hither & yon.
I know our course toward positivity is the right one, and I’m tenacious about using Web 2.0 to get us there, just need to keep learning how to dodge the eyerolling hipsters who buy into the kid culture you discussed w/reckless abandon sans common sense.
I need a good HIKE in the redwoods this weekend to find some much needed perspective! –Amy
Hi Amy,
That Summer Search article was inspiring. What a super program! I am completely, utterly convinced that nature is the great healer and, like you, I have the online/in nature split in my life. The wonderful thing for me has been that my work life does enable me to spend so much more time in nature than most people get to. I consider it among my chief blessings that when the sun is shining, I can go hike in the woods, and then come home to work all night. I feel really lucky and this arrangement keeps me balanced.
I think you are doing something so good and courageous with your blog. Like TV, computers are tools that can be used either for good or evil. The thing I think you are helping people to ‘get’ is that they have a choice about what they will subject themselves (and their kids) to. But, it’s amazing the hostility you meet with when you advocate for the protection of children from the media’s aims. Unfortunately, marketing to kids is a vast, lucrative industry and the subject matter used to do this gets worse and more exploitative every year. I’m cheering for you for devoting your time to raising consciousness about this. Good and important work.
Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by my blog. I was thrilled to find you’d commented! And, I’m looking forward to learning more about efforts being made to bring more attention to our local parks. Sounds great to me!
Miriam
[...] in January, I was disgruntled to discover that Google Maps wasn’t allowing reviews of State Parks. My post led to speculation that perhaps this had something to do with the legality of reviewing [...]