londrum - 8:46 pm on Oct 29, 2010 (gmt 0)

i question the value of that map for a lot of searches. for example, if you enter "new york hotel" you get a map that encompasses 50-square miles with 6 seemingly random hotels on it. maybe they want a 1-star, or 2-star, but there's no way of knowing what they'e looking at until they actually click on one of the pins. it doesnt even give you the name and details of the hotel when you hover over it, they've got to click a pin before they get even the smallest bit of info.

after the click, you get a page with just one AdWords at the top (and an invisible one way down at the bottom, after yove scrolled a few pages down)

why would google be encouraging people to click off a page with 11 AdWords on it, onto a page with just 1?

looks like these place pages must be making more money for them through other means.