About Google Maps as a source of business data
Google Maps is a map, a navigation app and, underneath, a directory of places: shops, restaurants, clinics, workshops, hotels, offices and public buildings, each with a panel of facts. Those facts come from several hands. Owners manage a listing through Google Business Profile - name, category, hours, special hours, phone, website, description, attributes. Visitors add reviews, photos and suggested edits, and Google marks some hours as updated by others. Google itself adds the editorial summary, the review topics and the visit statistics. That mix is why Google Maps business data needs cleaning: names, categories and hours have to be normalised before the branches of one chain can be compared.
The panel of a shop or restaurant has three tabs - Overview, Reviews and About - and its link carries the coordinates and identifiers of the place. There are no country sites to choose between. The interface language and region follow the request, so a category reads Coffee shop in English and differently in German while the identifiers stay put; we fix language and region per project so that categories and addresses come back in one form.
Search is local by design. Results depend on the map view, the zoom level and the wording of the query, with Price, Rating and Hours filters on top, and placements labelled Sponsored are mixed into the list.
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