By Tom Butala
Google’s Earth and Maps team announced this week that they will drop the real estate listing search feature from their maps technology due to limited user engagement.
Google UK Headquarters, London, United Kingdom - James Brittain/VIEW/Corbis
“In part due to low usage, the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real estate websites, and the infrastructure challenge posed by the impending retirement of the Google Base API (used by listing providers to submit listings), we’ve decided to discontinue the real estate feature within Google Maps…” reads a Wednesday blog post by Google Earth and Maps VP Brian McClendon.
Google says that although its technology is powerful, the maps are best used as a tool for specialized real estate firms. The company cites Coldwell Banker’s use of Google Maps and Realtor.com’s Android app that works with maps to display listings.
The real estate search option will be dropped from Google Maps on February 10, 2011.
Bummer, just discovered it and think it is great. Wish they advertised it use more.
Google Search real estate listings do not show me when I come try to search current map view. If I put in one place, it seems to work, but I prefer to capture a particular neighborhood or set of blocks and then see all the ads in this area.