14 DAY TRIAL // Google has announced that it will be retiring one the more ambitious undertakings in Google Maps, real estate listings and search. The feature was offered in several countries and it enabled users to find places for sale or rent in an area they were interested in.
Despite pulling data from several sources and providing a simple way of visualizing the location of the various offers, the feature didn't prove very interesting to users.
This, along with some of the technical challenges related to the feature, meant that it is no longer feasible to offer real estate listings search in Google Maps.
"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 on February 10, 2011," Brian McClendon, VP, Google Earth and Maps, announced.
A real estate layer was added a couple of years ago. The feature debuted in Australia and it was later expanded to several other countries, the US, New Zealand, the UK and Japan.
However, the feature didn't catch on and Google is now retiring it. Google says that there are better alternative out there, or at least more successful ones. The company directs users to any of the existing real estate listings sites that offer comprehensive search tools.
That is not to say this is the last we'll hear about real estate listing in Google Maps or the related, location-based products the company offers, but, for now, Google is backing down.
"We’ll continue to explore this area, but in the meantime, Google offers other options to home-seekers: you can still access other information in Maps such as local businesses, directions and transit times, as well as aerial and Street View imagery to explore where you might want to move, and also use Google search results to find helpful real estate information and websites," McClendon explained.