Introduction
In June of 2008, while this book was being written, the Google Maps API celebrated its third birthday. In Internet terms, three is a respectable age, and the Maps API is visibly maturing. It's quite common now to find Google's excellent maps embedded in sites all over the Web; accordingly, Google Maps "expertise" is becoming more common.
With this ubiquity, however, comes a certain danger of mediocrity. The question is no longer just, "Can I put a Google map on my website?" Instead, there's now sufficient maturity in the field that the question should be, "How can I put the best possible Google map on my site?" There are a lot of ways to answer that question, involving considerations of good web design techniques, usability, coding ...
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