Blog - Mapping

Mapping is a less well applied element of the internet than it could be and offers a multitude of possibilities.

At TWS, we have been applying map-based elements for clients for years, and little has changed in a drastic way over that time, but things have changed so much so that maybe they are sufficient to warrant a blog entry, a rare thing.

Google had been the dominant player in the provision of mapping resources over the years, something they have provided web site owners with through their static map pointer and their API. However, since about 2018 Google has no longer offered their API interface without the prerequisite of holding a valid credit card in order to do so. This itself was the reason that TWS migrated all its clients over to Bing maps.

The result of Googles move left a multitude of websites with greyed out maps with the words 'For development purposes only' written across them.

Bing maps works on the same model, offering a free API interface that you need to register to use, via a key, but does not ask for a credit card. The reason Google asks for a credit card is in case a site goes over the $200 a month free threshold, which equates to about 100,000 static map impressions or 29,000 dynamic map impressions. Essentially its overtly complex for a small business that might get 1,000 impressions a month and would obviously require the frequent updating of a valid credit card every few years, usually coming as a total surprise when maps don't show on a site.

Essentially Bing does not require all that palaver.

However, this is a simple piece of background. This blog entry is really more focussed on the overall benefits of mapping plus the newer development via other third parties, one being MapBox, that offer open source mapping tools that are a little more versatile. In particular, MapBox offers gradients and topographical features which are quite impressive.

Whilst contours and topographical features are not in their own right useful to everyone, they are a step on from the basic flat street map or aerial view, neither of which give a clear impression of what an area is actually like.

Advanced mapping tools, or rather, any mapping tool other than Google Maps, offers the additional benefit of not having Google Business locations added to them. whilst there might be a way in Google's API to switch off the Google Business entries, generally speaking that is another thing that has to be done. So compare that to Bing, as an example, Bing Maps are essentially restricted to town names and road names.  This is what mapping is. It’s not uncommon to find an entry in a Google Map that has a local pub included, or shop, and further, for that local pub or shop to appear with greater clarity than the location name. This has the unfortunate side effect that if you are applying a mapping system to a location, for example in Bulgaria of Brazil, or some nations where the local language is not English, that you might find a location, which in translations means 'Bobs Tyre Exchange' and think that that is the town name, even to the extent were written articles, written in a serious light, can be left to refer to places in foreign nations as 'Bobs Tyre Exchange' or refer to the locals as people from 'Bob's Tyre Exchange'.

As such, we are faced with a multitude of additional benefits through using other mapping tools, such as Bing Maps or other advanced mapping environments such as MapBox or even OpenStreetMap, Yandex, MapServer and OpenLayers to name a few.

However, whilst mapping tools can be fun to play with, they often need a purpose to be applied in earnest, and this is where TWS come in. We have years of experience in applying mapping systems to sites, whether its for Geographic SEO site optimisation, communicating geo-spatial rate charges for shipping and transportation, or dynamically depicting routes from a customer’s general location to a websites place of business, such as direction to your factory, as well as route specifications that avoid low bridges and one way streets not otherwise obvious on basic maps.

Further, TWS has years of experience in non-api mapping systems using html and php for a variety of applications which can be simpler and more effective than many basic mapping systems, for example, annotationly focussed tourists maps of place which might have dynamic content.

TWS also has years of experience in mapping for online gaming applications using custom non-api mapping technology.

In short, mapping systems have come along a fair amount of the years, and if you have a mapping requirement that cannot be simply facilitated by conventional tools, or a data driven mapping requirement, or even if you still have an old Google Map on your contact page with the overlay 'For development purposes only', then TWS can help.