londrum - 5:49 pm on Jun 2, 2010 (gmt 0)

As many a web designer started adding Google search boxes, maps etc, we helped to promote G. Google should imagine the impact of thousands of webmasters switching to Bing or ASK search bars, gadgets etc...

i recently removed all the google maps from my site (and there must have been 1000s of them) because of exactly that. i'm fed up with the way google scrapes our content.

the worse thing about adding stuff like google maps to your site is the reliance you place on it. they make it easy to script so you end up doing everything with it, tying it into your site in such a way that it becomes practically impossible to replace it with something else. i started thinking what happens if they start adding adverts to it? you're screwed. you'll either have to put up with the ads or pay out for some kind of ad-free license.