OpenStreetMap
Despite its name, OpenStreetMap is a database in a first place. And openstreetmap.org provides more or less informative page for each object in contains - way, node or relation. For example, look at this way: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/80476600 - it’s the Millennium Oakwood park, located at the Isle of Man.
Nowadays, if someone wants to find something on the Web, the most obvious way to do that is to use a web search. Such as Google, for example.
Let’s search for “Millennium Oakwood”. Google Maps widget goes first, couple of government sites following it, someone’s photo on Flickr and tons of rubbish.
Let’s do it more straightforward: “Millennium Oakwood OpenStreetMap”. No Google Maps, but other results are quite similar. One exception - couple of entries from triposo.com, which uses OpenStreetMap.
So, basically, there is no way to find an object in OSM database via web search updated: for general public, who have no intention to query OSM data specifically.
Non-searchable = non-existent, at least, for people, using text search on the web.
I can imagine, that someone can argue, that OSM shouldn’t display its “guts” - lists of nodes, links to changesets and so on. But actually, many of these pages somehow were indexed by search engines and you can find at least a fraction of them.
I don’t know, if current rules of robots.txt file (which tells search engines what not to index) are actually preventing it, or there is another reason for it. But currently, the whole bunch of information in OSM database is just completely hidden from public searches.
For me, it seems like talking about informing people of OSM and hiding it from them in the same time is a kind of self-contradiction.
Discussion
Comment from GOwin on 20 December 2015 at 07:22
Well, this isn’t straight-forward, but it’s no secret either. If you search using Google, search as follows, with the special “site:” option
which returns the same object you mentioned earlier.
My other favorite search engine, Duck Duck Go offers the special bang, “!osm” to search specifically using OSM,
So, there exists several ways to find objects in OSM databases via web search. My personal style is to add OSM a search engine in my browser so I can search direct from the address bar.
Comment from SimonPoole on 20 December 2015 at 07:41
google used to return individual OSM objects quite prominently, they seem to have stopped doing that. Can’t blame them, they -are- a competitor and why should they give us preferential treatment.
There has been some work on providing OSM data in a more search engine friendly way (well actually in a more search result friendly way) however that hasn’t been completed yet and in any case it is completly unclear if that would help with the competitive issue.
Comment from Sanderd17 on 20 December 2015 at 11:05
Of course there are other search methods. My preference is the !osm bang of DDG (which is my default search engine). Note that I don’t always like the search results from DDG, but it’s so much easier to type !osm for OSM, !w for Wikipedia, !g for Google, !i for Google images, … than having to go via links or selecting an alternative search engine.
Comment from _yog on 20 December 2015 at 15:59
My 2 cents: This were there is a difference between power users of OSM and general public usage.
Power users know about the potential of OSM, know its guts and know that the data is here to be used in any given service that is willing to use it.
Standard user on Internet wants to go to a certain place or find where a certain shop is located, so the user type on a search engine to have an answer, a direction. If people are introduced to OSM, first reaction I noticed is “ok but why OSM rather than google ?” If you somehow manage to explain why OSM is good, why it can be better than Gmaps, some of them are willing to give it a quick go. Most reactions I’ve heard to date is “the search engine is a bit weird, it never seems to find what I’m looking for”. Sometimes a simple post code change, typo error or whatever will not return anything, even if the data is actually here.
Power users will say: this is normal. Average Internet user will say: Gmaps is better.
Both of them can be considered as right depending on what you are looking for. The main problematic thing in my opinion is that OSM would not suffer attracting more contributors, or just users. The more users you have, the more likely the tool will be known, bringing other users, other contributors, etc etc. If, despite managing to bring a potential user to try OSM, you lose them because the tool is not usable, still in my opinion, you are losing much more than just an user since word of mouth can be very negative.
OSM introduced direction a while ago, this was a very positive thing in my opinion to encourage average users to use OSM. Not having an efficient search engine is somehow contradicting this idea.
I tend to agree on the Non-searchable = Non-existent
Comment from RobJN on 20 December 2015 at 17:50
I get results when I search for a place name plus OpenStreetMap on Google. It didn’t always get the right result but it did return something.
Comment from BushmanK on 20 December 2015 at 17:51
Thank you for your replies.
First, I have to make it clear: I was talking about how searchable OSM data are for general public - for people, who have no intention to query OSM data specifically. Therefore, ability to use site: or !osm keywords is not relevant to this problem.
Second, returning relevant results is not “making a preference” - it’s just equal treatment. While currently it seems like treatment is negative. But we can’t probably do anything about it in case of Google except building a crazy huge sitemap.xml, like http://wikimapia.org has. Which actually works in case of it, despite the fact they are “competitors” too.
Third, the fact, that DDG doesn’t show Google Map, but shows OSM results, doesn’t work as a proof of anything, because OSM has searchable static text pages of every object, while Google Maps - don’t. That’s why it happens.
Fourth, I’m perfectly aware of fact, that OSM is a data provider - it is mentioned in the first paragraph of my diary entry. But there is constant buzz about “we need more contributors” and “people are not aware of OSM in general”. While making existing data more searchable via plain text search by name or address seems to be much more effective tool for telling people that OSM has massive amount of information, than all other efforts together. This is just my reasonable hypothesis and I’d be glad to hear why I’m wrong here.
Also, I’d really appreciate to have a link, explaining “some work on providing OSM data in a more search engine friendly way”.
Comment from CloCkWeRX on 24 December 2015 at 12:17
https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/173 would have been a simple, effective solution for this; but basically stalled entirely.
Comment from BushmanK on 25 December 2015 at 22:48
@CloCkWeRX - I’m not surprised.
Comment from Akhila Venu on 16 March 2016 at 10:04
I get results when I search for a place name plus OpenStreetMap on Google. It didn’t always get the right result but it did return something. http://corporates.review/
Comment from BushmanK on 16 March 2016 at 15:55
@Akhila Venu is a spammer