Has it’s been documented quite frequently, since the launch of Google’s map service, there have been quite a few hacks and extensions built that further Google’s map search functionality.
Now comes news of a new one, which was reported by Philipp at Google Blogoscoped, that increases the Google Maps address finding abilities to a US Postal Service style of address location. The hack, called the Google Address Translation, was developed by John Resig and gives Google Maps the ability to convert any US Postal Address into Latitude/Longitude coordinates.
The hack, which is “completely reusable,” makes use of the Geocoder API to translate these address listings. This initial part of the Google Maps hack acquires the address and then parses out the Lat and Long coordinates, which are then fed to the JavaScript portion of the hack. This portion is responsible for the translation of the coordinates into a Google GPoint.
These GPoints are then fed to Google Maps, which returns labeled point that corresponds with the translated location. John’s blog also contains a working model of the hack for those who want to see how it works.
Unfortunately, this ability was not integrated into Google Maps, for whatever reason; but judging by the straight-fowardness of the hack, it didn’t seem like it’s be too hard to do so. In order to install John’s address translator, you must have a Google Maps API key.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
