Google Maps Can't Find Me

January 3, 2024 7:35 AM

So I'm having a weird issue with Google Maps on desktop - it consistently is wrong with GPS locating me when I am at home, and keeps thinking I'm somewhere about a mile away. How do I fix THIS?

PLEASE note that this is only for Google Maps when I am on my laptop, most often at home. For whatever reason, when I'm sitting in my bedroom, Google Maps thinks that my "current location" is a completely different building about ten blocks away. I've refreshed and updated just about everything but this is still persisting.

All the "how to fix Google Maps having you in the wrong location" Googling I've done deals with fixing things on the phone app, which is working just fine for me. This is only happening on my laptop. Most often it is when I am at home; I don't travel with my laptop frequently and don't really know how it is affected elsewhere.

This is a minor problem, I grant, but I'm just really curious now.

posted by EmpressCallipygos to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

Does your laptop have GPS?

If not, then Google Maps is guessing based on your internet provider's information, which is likely not exact.

I think if you set up a E911 address, your home will get more accurate. Here's Windows instructions for location services.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:49 AM on January 3 [7 favorites]

On desktop, Google maps seems to put a lot of emphasis on the location of your network connection and geo-locating a network connection isn't terribly reliable. Mine currently thinks I am in the office, because I'm on VPN and that's where the VPN terminates. When I am not on VPN, it tends to think I am in London ON, a place this computer has never been, but where my ISP is headquartered.

If you just need easy directions from where you are, set a home location in Google maps and use that as the starting point.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:52 AM on January 3 [3 favorites]

My first thought was, does your laptop have GPS? Mine does not, so Google must guess my location based on other factors like IP addresses and nearby Wi-Fi networks. It's close, but not perfect.

If you look at the address it guessed for you on street view, is it owned by a utility company? They often have no windows.
posted by phil at 7:53 AM on January 3

This is sort of complicated. With your phone, you have GPS so it knows where the phone is. Your desktop doesn't have this. But your desktop connects to your ISP and has an IP address and it connects to your Wifi. There are datasets that link IP to geographic location (called geoip databases). There are datasets that link Wifi names to geographic location.

So when you use location on your desktop browser, it sort of does its best with the information it has available. Whether you can make it better really depends. If you get your home internet from cellular services, a lot of times the access point will have GPS and use that location so it is pretty good. I used to have AT&T DSL and it always reported my location at the top of the road where there is this big A&T box. Now I have Starlink and my location is weird. But if I'm on my work VPN, my location swaps to the data center where my company terminates the VPN.

I'm not sure how fixable this is in terms of making the detected location better.
posted by cmm at 7:54 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

Phones are located mostly by gps or tower proximity. Your desktop is located by ip, which is way less accurate and not the service termination (your address), but up-network a bit. Lotsa addresses will show that same location.

Probably the culprit: are you searching Google maps with your address?

Location by address is just a giant lookup table. So, they'll have to change that record. I've read of this issue, but dunno the mechanics of provoking Google into action.

On preview, this is a useless comment. Shrugs, posting anyway for background.
posted by j_curiouser at 7:58 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

To confirm that it is an ISP issue, you could try disconnecting your computer from your home WiFi and tethering to your phone (and probably disconnecting your phone from your home WiFi as well). I bet that will show your exact location.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:07 AM on January 3

tethering to your phone (and probably disconnecting your phone from your home WiFi as well). I bet that will show your exact location.

I bet that will show a random major city 200 miles away, wherever the phone tower's internet originates. That's what happens to me, at least, because your phone can't inject location data for another device.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:26 AM on January 3 [6 favorites]

Do you have an Android phone or an iPhone? Google's location services can use the names and characteristics of nearby wifi networks to refine your location, and Google's help on the subject implies that you can use an Android phone's GPS to refine Google's wifi location data. Presumably when you tap "My Location" as instructed there, an Android phone will send information about all the wifi networks it can see and not just the active network (although the active network would most likely have the strongest signal unless your neighbors have done something excessive).

In the absence of wifi location information, Google Maps will rely on the information it can determine about your internet provider using other means, as noted above. And as you've found, the accuracy of that information is somewhat limited.
posted by fedward at 8:27 AM on January 3

On some of my devices, when using Chrome, and when signed in to my Google account, I'll see a note to the effect that my laptop's location was determined based on my phone's location (I forget the specific wording). I assume that this is because I'm signed in to Chrome, and also on my phone, and both devices are on the same wifi, so it makes the assumption that the laptop is near the phone.

It's going to be highly dependent on what permissions you grant, and what information is even available to the device. Your phone has the current connected cell tower, nearby towers, current connected wifi, nearby wifi, GPS, IP address, etc. Your laptop has most of those except GPS and cell tower, but they tend not to be available to a webpage in a browser, unless you grant permissions.
posted by yuwtze at 8:30 AM on January 3 [2 favorites]

Try Gaia gps and Onx to compare to Google Maps
posted by falsedmitri at 8:40 AM on January 3

On desktop, Google maps seems to put a lot of emphasis on the location of your network connection and geo-locating a network connection isn't terribly reliable.

On the phone too. Contrary to popular belief, the location services on your phone rarely if ever actually talk to the GPS satellites. If they are available, your device is using proximity to cell towers and WiFi SSIDs to determine its location. GPS is only really used if there are not enough cell towers in range.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 8:59 AM on January 3

Response by poster: If you just need easy directions from where you are, set a home location in Google maps and use that as the starting point.

Just coming in to state that I'm already doing this; I was more looking for a way to avoid having to take this step. But it sounds like I may just be stuck.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:58 PM on January 3