Google map plan

While scraping Google Maps for job leads, I extracted business coordinates from GMB URLs when exact locations weren’t available.

This is a GMB URL example where the coordinates values are after the @:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/CallOnDoc/@46.423669,-129.9427085,3z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x864e9ff614faaaf5:0xbec976c7d6f5b955!8m2!3d46.423669!4d-129.9427086!16s%2Fg%2F11gmdf9b8y?authuser=0&hl=en&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTEyMy4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
After plotting the data, I noticed some points fell in the ocean—raising questions about how relevant these businesses are…

Here is an example of such business:
CallOnDoc, a business with more than 16K ratings.

Seeing a major business like CallOnDoc with a location error on Google Maps raised red flags.
I re-scraped a large data sample—4,986,146 entries—and found 133,292 points placed in the ocean.
This pattern, dubbed “the distribution of geocoding errors” by a community member, highlights systemic data flaws where invalid addresses default to placeholder coordinates.

Here is the graph separately: https://josephelhaddad.github.io/plotly/b_in_sea2

The data set can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rCXC7h1kgVbcUA0Bu5yXj4NGUbqst2Cl?usp=sharing

Check this amazing article by https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/american-business-is-all-at-sea.html

Some members suggest that [46.423669, -129.9427086] could be the [0, 0] (The Null island) of the US, the same way Switzerland have it own anchor.

The [46.423669, -129.9427086] point is to the left of the USA, can it be the center?

To answer this, I looked for the 4 most extreme points of the US territories using lists from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extreme_points_of_the_United_States

• These are the extreme points:
  
  • Northernmost - Utqiagvik, Alaska: 71.290556, -156.788611
    
  • Southernmost - Rose Atoll: -14.546667, -168.151944
    
  • Westernmost - Point Udall (Guam): 13.447556, 144.618194
    
  • Easternmost - Point Udall (U.S. Virgin Islands): 17.755833, -64.566944
    

I made an "area" out of the values [71, -14, 144, -64], and turns out, that [46.423669, -129.9427086] is in the center, at least horizontally.
If you need the graph separately: https://josephelhaddad.github.io/plotly/b_in_sea3_orthographic

We might be able to draw quick conclusions:

• The clusters we see are probably the coordinates the devs use when invalid coordinates are inputted.
  
• The randomly placed business locations, that often single, are probably intentional.
  

• Coordinates distribution
  

  Coordinates	Count	Percentage %
  46.423669 , -129.9427086	97897	73.44	WWWWWWWWWWWW
  0 , 0	5702	4.27	h
  27.698638 , -83.804601	4149	3.11	!
  37.878638 , -122.4203375	3326	2.49	c
  37.7848269 , -122.7073054	1030	0.77	.
  33.8256055 , -118.641338	673	0.50
  14.1576412 , -106.6918595	562	0.42
  40.419584 , -73.6754126	427	0.32
  41.7993125 , -70.3086624	335	0.25
  34.032332 , -119.134398	325	0.24

• States distribution
  

  State	Count	Percentage %
  California	25124	18.85	WWWWWWWWWWWW
  Florida	19333	14.50	WWWWWWWWV
  New York	10294	7.72	WWWH
  Texas	9491	7.12	WWWc
  Ohio	5052	3.79	W
  Pennsylvania	4058	3.04	!
  Georgia	3729	2.80	;
  Massachusetts	3543	2.66	:
  Missouri	3234	2.43
  Illinois	3182	2.39

• Business types distribution
  

  Business type	Count	Percentage %
  Marketing agency	12282	9.21	WWWWWWWWWWWW
  Marketing consultant	3607	2.70	WWh
  Internet marketing service	3130	2.34	WW.
  Interior designer	2649	1.98	Wl
  House cleaning service	1656	1.24	l
  Website designer	1562	1.17	!
  Electrician	1426	1.06	;
  Construction company	1300	0.97	:
  Tutoring service	1186	0.88	.
  Painter	1139	0.85