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How To : View Popular Hours, Wait Times, and Live Visit Data for Businesses to Determine When to Go Out, Stay Home, or Move On

Unlike Apple Maps , Google Maps can tell you when a restaurant, bar, club, or other business you're thinking of visiting is busy. It's extremely helpful if you want to avoid peak times or wait for the place to be empty. If you can't pry yourself away from using Apple Maps, there's an easy alternative to see the popular times of most businesses.

Google collects anonymous user data via its mobile apps on Android and iOS to populate visit information for business listings. This aggregated data is thanks to users who've opted into Google Location History and Location Reporting on their Google account, and it helps build graphs to show popular times, live visit information, wait times, and even typical visit durations.

Apple was rumored to be working on a similar feature, but nothing has materialized yet that rivals Google's live visit data for businesses and places of interest.

• Don't Miss: How to Scan Your Surroundings with Google Maps Live View to Calibrate Your Location

Option 1: Use Google Maps

Visit data is available for business listings in Google Maps, the default navigation app for most Android phones. It also happens to be the top navigation app for iPhone in Apple's App Store. Use the links below to install or update the app to the most recent version.

• Install or update Google Maps: Android (free) | iOS (free)

If you want to see visit data for a business before going out, you don't have to pull out your smartphone. Instead, you can use Google Maps' desktop web app on your computer. This method also works via desktop.

Viewing a Location's Popular Times, Live Visit Data, and More

With Google Maps open, search for the location you'd like to evaluate or browse for it on the map. An info card for the site will appear at the bottom of the screen. Swipe up to access the full card, and keep scrolling until you find the popular times section.

Based on historical data, the graph shows how busy the place is on a typical day using a bar chart. According to Google, the times are based on the average popularity over the last few months. If live visit data is available, you'll see the current time highlighted in red or pink, showing how active the location is compared to its regular popularity at that time.

You can tap on any time bar to get a brief description of the time's popularity or live status, such as "usually not too busy" or "less busy than usual." And if you're planning your visit for a different day of the week, tap the current day to select a different one from the day selector.

Below the graph, you may also see information on the typical visit duration and wait time estimates, both based on patterns from the last several weeks. The wait time shows the general length of time a customer would wait before receiving service, along with the peak wait time for that day.

The process is similar on the desktop website, except the card will remain on the left side of the page with the map filling the remainder.

Viewing an Area's Popular Times, Live Visit Data, and More

If you don't have a specific destination but want to discover how busy the nearby area is, you can browse the mobile app's map view for an overview of the area. The map will denote if particular districts are busy and will often include an evaluation of popularity with location labels. Oddly, this view is not available on the desktop website.

Option 2: Use Google Search

If Google Maps is not your preferred mapping app, fire up your default web browser or the Google app for Android or iOS and search Google for your destination. Look for the info card for the location and make sure the "Overview" tab is highlighted.

• Install or update Google: Android (free) | iOS (free)

Next, scroll down until you find the popular times card. Compared to the Google Maps app, you'll have to scroll further to get past other search results, but you'll get there eventually. Once there, you'll see a similar bar chart to that above, depicting the popularity throughout the day, with the peak time obvious.

You'll see some of the same data available in Google Maps, but it may look slightly different. The bar chart will have thinner bars, and there will be tabs for the days instead of a day selector menu. You may or may not see data points for typical visit duration, wait time estimates, and peak wait times.

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With more than a billion people using Google Maps every month and more than 5 million active apps and websites using Google Maps Platform core products every week, we get questions about where our maps data come from, how we keep it accurate, and more. So before we get to our third installment of the Beyond the Map series, we sat down with product director Ethan Russell to get answers to a few frequently asked questions about our maps data and how you can help us keep it up to date for your very own applications and experiences. 

How do you make sure Google’s maps data is accurate?   The world is a vast and constantly changing place. Think about how frequently restaurants in your neighborhood come and go, and then consider all the businesses, buildings, homes and roads that are built–and then scale that up to more than 220 countries and regions that are home to more than 7 billion people in the world. We want everyone on the planet to have an accurate, up-to-date map, but there’s a lot going on! So our work is never done and we have a variety of different efforts and technologies helping us keep our maps data as up to date as possible. If you haven’t read the first two installments of the Beyond the Map series, they’re a good start in learning more about how we map the world and keep our data up to date. The first post gives you an overview of our mapping efforts and the second post explains how imagery is the foundation of our mapping techniques. But something we haven’t highlighted in the series yet is how we empower our customers, businesses, and users to contribute what they know about the world and keep our data up to date for themselves and each other. 

How can I submit updated information?   There are a few different channels for people, businesses, and customers to help update our maps data when something’s not right. Anyone who uses Google Maps can let us know about data issues via the Send Feedback (desktop Maps) and Suggest an Edit (place profiles on Maps and Search) tools. For Google Maps Platform customers using one of our industry solutions (like gaming), the product includes an API for reporting bad points, enabling our game studio partners to report issues to us so we can take action accordingly. And of course if a customer is working closely with our customer engineering teams or an account manager, then they can always work directly with them or the support team to get the information updated. Businesses and agencies that manage business info can also update their business information via Google My Business . 

**Are there any other ways that Google finds updated information beyond user contributions?** Within Google, we have a dedicated team working on keeping our data up to date day in and day out. This covers things like incorporating data from third party resources, developing algorithms to automatically update data and identify spam or fraud, and reaching out directly to businesses and organizations to get accurate info.

**How often is your maps data updated?** The map is updated constantly–literally, every second of every day! We’re constantly collecting new information about the world, whether from satellite imagery and Street View cars, or Google Maps users and local business owners, and using that information to update the map. Google Maps users contribute more than 20 million pieces of information every day–that’s more than 200 contributions every second. In addition to the updates we make from what people tell us, we’re making countless updates uncovered through other means like the imagery and machine learning efforts we’ve shared with you in the recent Beyond the Map blog posts posts. 

If a business or organization has a lot of data to contribute, how can they do that?   For organizations like governments, non-profits, and educational institutions that have large amounts of data about things like new roads or addresses of new buildings, they can use the new Geo Data Upload tool. When submitting via the tool, it’s important that you send data in the right format, so we can ingest the files easier–a shapefile (.shp) or .csv with spatial attributes are preferred file types. If you’re ready to submit your data, it’s helpful that you and your team review our upload content requirements (which you can do at this support page ).  

Agencies that manage online marketing for a variety of businesses can use Google My Business to add and update business information. Not only does it get business info into our Places APIs, but it offers a wide range of tools to help businesses better connect with consumers through features like messaging, product inventory, and more on Google Maps and Search. 

How do you manage the vast amounts of data it takes to keep up with the changing world?   Given that we’re building maps at a truly global scale, you can imagine we process a lot of information. We have many different types of data–roads, buildings, addresses, businesses, and all their various attributes–and imagery from different viewpoints at high resolution. Luckily, we’re not starting from scratch here. From processing and storage systems like Dataflow and Cloud Spanner to machine learning libraries and frameworks like TensorFlow , we’re able to make sense of a river of incoming data.

**Why are there differences in data quality in various parts of the world? And how do you address these differences to make sure businesses everywhere can use Google Maps Platform?** Part of what’s fun and challenging about mapping the entire planet is dealing with all the regional differences. This starts with different political constructs, like how granular the postal codes are, or whether addresses for buildings run linearly from one end of a street to the other or are distributed around a block. Then there are physical differences, like with buildings being attached to each other in a city, and with multiple businesses–and private residences!–on different floors. Or when an area has lots of tree cover that makes it hard to see roads underneath, or no tree cover but dry riverbeds that look like dirt roads. And then there are economic differences like how quickly new roads and buildings are constructed, and how quickly new businesses open up. Add in the fact of different languages and different scripts that our algorithms, machine learning and human operators need to understand, and you have a lot of complicating factors leading to different kinds of problems in different parts of the world.

To address these differences we take new and different mapping approaches to these areas. For an area with few authoritative data sources to reference, we use satellite and street-level imagery and machine learning to identify roads or businesses and add the information to our maps data. Or for an area with roads too narrow to map we created a “Street View 3-wheeler” to capture imagery to help us add those roads. As we uncover new mapping challenges, we’re always eager to develop a new solution. 

What’s the most interesting way that Google or another organization has contributed maps data?   Sheep View is my personal favorite. Solar-powered cameras were strapped to sheep’s woolly backs to collect imagery of the Faroe Islands for Street View. The 18 Faroe Islands are home to just 50,000 people, but—fittingly for a country whose name means “Sheep Island”—there are 70,000 sheep roaming the green hills and volcanic cliffs of the archipelago. So sheep were a brilliant way to capture imagery of the area–and definitely the most creative I’ve seen. 

With Halloween around the corner, what’s up with all those spooky Street View images of people with three legs or a plane submerged in a lake?   The imagery you see on Google Maps and that’s available via our Maps and Street View APIs is a compilation of billions of photos combined together. Sometimes when we stitch together photos of the same scene, things don’t line up exactly right. This happens especially with things that are moving, like a person walking or an airplane flying. We’re always tweaking our systems and algorithms to handle these situations better. Last Halloween, we actually explained some of the photography challenges behind the most common types of “spooky” imagery in  this blog post . 

Now that we’ve answered some of the most common questions about our maps data, stay tuned for upcoming Beyond the Maps posts for more in-depth looks at how we’re mapping the world and how that helps businesses build location-based experiences worldwide. 

 For more information on Google Maps Platform,  visit our website .

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The Wonder of Tech

Carolyn Nicander Mohr / June 15, 2020

Google Maps Can Show You How Busy a Place Is Right Now

The estimated reading time for this post is 4 minutes

Q. Thanks for your recent article about Google Maps showing the busiest times at stores and restaurants. That’s been really helpful for me and my family to avoid crowds.

But is there any way to see how busy a place is right now? Where we live stores and restaurants are beginning to open up again, and Google’s chart of busiest times may not actually show how busy places are right now.

I really want to avoid crowds, and I’m hoping that some tech can help me do that. If there’s a way of seeing how busy a place is right now, could you do an article on that?

A. Great question. You’re right, times are changing, some restrictions are being lifted, and places like stores and restaurants may be opening up again. We want to avoid crowds and avoid waiting in lines to enter a store or restaurant, especially during a pandemic.

But some restrictions may remain in place, such as limiting the number of customers in stores and restaurants to allow for social distancing. Your favorite restaurant may be open, but also may have restrictions on the number of tables available for customers.

Check out =>   Free Stuff to Help You While Social Distancing

Knowing whether a place is traditionally busy on a certain day and time can be helpful. But seeing whether a store or restaurant is busy right now can make a big difference when you’re trying to avoid crowds.

By seeing live data, you could learn whether you can visit a restaurant now, without having a long wait for a table. You could see whether you could enter a store now, without having to wait in a long line to enter.

The good news is that Google Maps does have Live Visit Data , showing whether a place is busy right now. By seeing this data, you can make an informed decision about whether you should visit a place now or wait until a later time.

Tip => If the place you want to visit is busy now, you can use Google Maps Popular Times to plan a time and day that should be less crowded. Or you could wait until Google Maps shows that place is less busy.

See,  How Google Maps Can Help You Avoid Crowds at Stores, Restaurants and More

How to See Live Visit Data on Google Maps

Google Maps includes Live Visit Data for places on both the Google Maps website and in the Google Maps app. Live Visit Data shows you how busy a place currently is compared to how busy it typically is.

Google Maps explains that Live Visit Data “shows how active your location is right now. Live Visit Data is updated in real time and overlaid on the Popular Times graph.”

To see how busy a place is right now on the Google Maps website or the Google Maps app, search for a place near you, such as a store or a restaurant. Scroll down to the Popular Times graph.

Look for the Live red box and a red bar at the current time, showing how busy a place is right now. The red bar will be overlaid on top of a bar that shows how busy a place usually is at this time.

If you don’t see a red bar, or don’t see a Popular Times graph, then Google Maps doesn’t have information about how busy that location is.

Don’t miss =>   How Google Maps Can Help You Avoid Crowded Trains, Buses, and Subway Cars

Availability

While Live Visit Data can be very helpful in showing you whether a place is busy right now, you should know that not all places show Live Visit Data on Google Maps. Even places that have Popular Times listed may not have Live Visit Data available. If you only see blue bars on the Popular Times graph, then Live Visit Data isn’t currently available for that place.

This Popular Times graph doesn’t show Live Visit Data:

Google Maps relies on people visiting who have allowed Location History in the app on their phones. If not enough people who have allowed Google Maps Location History visit a place, then Google Maps won’t have enough information to provide Live Visit Data or Popular Times.

Check out =>   How to REALLY Turn Off Google Location History

Not every location has a Popular Times graph, and fewer have Live Visit Data. But if you’re heading out and want to see whether a place is busy right now, Google Maps Live Visit Data may be able to give you the information you need.

Your Thoughts

Do you plan your trips to try to avoid crowds? Have you used Live Visit Data or Popular Times on Google Maps to plan a trip to a shop or restaurant? Will you check Google Maps to see whether a place is currently busy?

Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!

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Reader Interactions

June 16, 2020 at 5:13 am

Google maps is very helpful for a guy like me who works in delivery.. it helps me avoid traffic.. but I didn’t know about this feature thanks for the details

June 16, 2020 at 11:39 am

Hi Peter, Yes, Google Maps is well-known for helping people avoid traffic jams. See => How Google Maps Can Help You Avoid Future Traffic Snarls .

And Google Maps can also help you avoid crowds in many places, in the future or in real time. I’m so glad this is helpful for you, Peter.

June 16, 2020 at 7:31 am

Very informative post. I did not know the feature of the google map to check crowded areas. It is an important thing in the time of covid19

June 16, 2020 at 11:32 am

Hi Sourav, Yes, avoiding crowds is appealing any time, but especially now with COVID-19 it’s even more important. Avoiding crowds now can help keep us safer from the virus.

June 16, 2020 at 12:34 pm

Yes, you are right. Thanks for sharing such a helpful post.

June 17, 2020 at 4:33 am

Hii CAROLYN

Thanks a lot for sharing this awesome info. Yes, google map will show whether shop is crowded or not, this helps for social distancing and avoid contact with people.

Thanks once again. Keep it up.

June 17, 2020 at 12:32 pm

Hi Abhishek, You’re right, social distancing is much easier when places are less busy. By using this feature of Google Maps you can learn whether a place is busy right now and know whether you can social distance effectively there.

June 21, 2020 at 9:50 pm

Thanks for sharing the update. Do you know if this feature was updated or expanded recently related to social distancing?

June 22, 2020 at 8:12 am

Hi Deborah, Great question. Live Visit Data has been available in Google Maps since before COVID-19 but is more important than ever now with shops and restaurants opening up as restrictions are lifted.

June 22, 2020 at 11:07 am

Hi Carolyn, I am using Google Maps all the time but I had never seen this so I had to take a look. Unfortunately, it looks as though this feature is not available in Germany (where I live) – or I am blind. I cannot even find the “most popular times” feature. That is really sad as this seems so useful in view of Covid-19 and the need to distance and avoid crowded places. Hopefully, this feature will be available in Germany, soon! Thanks for this! Susanna

June 25, 2020 at 4:16 pm

Hi Susanna, I’m sorry that this feature isn’t available where you are living as it can be quite helpful. I hope Google Maps does bring this information to Germany so that you can better plan when to visit places and avoid crowds.

June 28, 2020 at 5:06 pm

This is a simple feature of Google Maps but one of its most useful ones! Great for shoppers to know when to visit any local shop.

June 30, 2020 at 4:13 pm

Hi Federico, Yes, this feature can be extremely useful any time, and particularly during the pandemic. There is rarely a time when you want to be around crowds when shopping and this feature can help you avoid them.

June 29, 2020 at 4:59 am

I am using Google Maps for at least 10 years now. But first time I come to know about this feature.

June 30, 2020 at 4:09 pm

Hi Abhishek, I’m so glad this article was helpful for you. That’s exactly why I write The Wonder of Tech, to help people discover fun and useful tech.

June 30, 2020 at 8:03 am

This is a cool feature, I’m guessing they made this especially for COVID-19, so people can avoid crowded places. technology is getting so useful

June 30, 2020 at 4:06 pm

Hi Unoke, Good guess, this would seem like a timely innovation, but this feature has been available from Google Maps since before COVID-19. But it certainly is most valuable now that we are trying to avoid crowds to stay safe from the virus.

July 3, 2020 at 3:52 am

Thank you for sharing such valuable content. Google Maps are very important for every businessman and the individual person. This will be really helpful for the prevention of COVID-19 as people can avoid crowded places and opt for a safer and better option.

July 5, 2020 at 10:32 am

Hi Ema, Yes, this feature of Google Maps can help both customers and businesses. Customers can plan their trips when places are less busy and businesses can have a more even traffic flow. This is a very helpful feature of Google Maps.

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How to see how busy a store is right now with google maps.

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If you have the choice, you'd probably want to go to grocery stores and other businesses when they're not crowded. With a few taps, Google Maps can tell you how busy a store, restaurant, park, or other location is at that very moment and at other times of the day.

You can find this information on the Google Maps website in your browser or in the Google Maps app for iPhone , iPad , and Android . Search for the name of a store, restaurant, business, or other location — it even works for parks.

First, click or tap the name of the location to view more information about it. Look for the "Popular Times" chart in the panel — you may need to scroll down to see it. Look for a "Live" time that tells you how busy a business is right now.

You can also click the name of the weekday and select another day of the week to check when the location is usually the busiest. Do more people tend to shop on Wednesday or Sunday? Is the store less busy early in the morning or late at night? The chart will tell you.

This information isn't available for every location, but it is available for most locations you'll come across. Google doesn't track this information for locations that don't "get enough visits" from people who have enabled Google Location History.

How Does It Work?

This feature takes advantage of the location data Google receives from people who choose to enable Google Location History on their phones. Using this data, Google will estimate how busy it is at a particular location right now.

It also remembers historical data and can average it to show you when a store is usually the most — and least — busy every week. Google uses a very similar tactic for tracking traffic conditions on roads in Google Maps .

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Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Location information plays an important role in that mission. From driving directions, to making sure your search results include things near you, to showing you when a restaurant is typically busy, location information can make your experiences across Google more relevant and helpful.

Location information also helps with some core product functionality, like providing a website in the right language or helping to keep Google’s services secure.

The Google Privacy Policy describes how Google uses data, including location information, when you use its products and services. This page provides additional details about the location information Google uses and how you can control the ways it may be used. Some data practices may differ for users under the age of 18. Learn more in Google’s Privacy Notice for Google Accounts and Profiles Managed with Family Link, for Children and Google’s Teen Privacy Guide .

How does Google use location information?

How Google uses location information varies, depending on the service or feature being used and people’s device and account settings. Here are some key ways Google may use location information.

To make experiences useful

Google may use or save location information to provide people with useful services when they interact with Google products, such as providing locally relevant and faster search results, traffic predictions for people’s daily commutes, and suggestions that take into account a person’s context. For example, someone searching for movie times will likely want to see movies at theaters in their neighborhood, not in another city. In Google Maps, location information helps people find their place on a map and navigate to places they’d like to visit.

To help people remember places they’ve been

People can choose to remember places they go with their devices using Timeline. To use Timeline, people can turn on Location History, a Google Account setting that creates a personal map of the places they’ve been and the routes they’ve taken. If you choose to use Location History, your device’s precise locations are saved to a personal map, including when you don’t have Google apps open. This information can be viewed and deleted in Timeline.

To help people find things faster and get more helpful results

Web & App Activity, for example, is a Google account setting that lets people save their activity data and associated information like location, so they can make their experience more personalized when they are signed in across Google services. For example, Search might show results that are relevant to a general area you’ve searched from in the past.

To show more relevant ads

Your location information can help Google show you more relevant ads. When you search for something like “shoe stores near me,” location information can be used to show you ads from shoe stores near you. Or, let’s say you’re searching for pet insurance, advertisers might show different benefits in different areas. Learn more about how location information is used to show ads .

To make experiences more secure

Google uses information about your location to provide some basic services, such as keeping your account safe by detecting unusual activity, or a sign-in from a new city.

To show anonymous community trends, estimates, and for research

Google also uses aggregated anonymous location information for research and to show community trends.

To see more ways that location information is used, visit the Google Privacy Policy .

How does location work on my Android device and apps?

You can get local search results, commute predictions and find nearby restaurants from your device’s location. Android device settings for your mobile phones or tablets allow you to control whether the location services on your device estimate location, and also whether and how specific apps and services on your device can use that device location.

How you can control apps’ use of device location

You can control which apps have permission to use the device location in your Android device settings. In settings, you have controls that let you choose whether the app can access precise or approximate location. We’ve added controls that allow you to decide whether an app can access the device location anytime, only while the app is in use, if the app has to ask every time, or never. The availability of these settings and controls depends on which Android version your device is running. Learn more .

How device location works

Depending on your device settings, Android devices estimate location by using different inputs, including GPS, sensors (such as accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, and barometer), mobile network signals, and Wi-Fi signals. These inputs can be used to estimate the most accurate location possible, which is provided to apps and services on the device that have the required permissions. Learn more about your Android device’s location settings .

Mobile and Wi-Fi network signals can help Android estimate the device’s location, especially in environments where GPS signals aren’t available or accurate, including in dense urban areas or when indoors. Google Location Accuracy (GLA, also known as Google Location Services) is a Google service that uses these signals to improve the device’s location estimate.

To provide this more accurate location, when turned on, GLA periodically collects location information from your Android device—including GPS and information about Wi-Fi access points, mobile networks and device sensors—using a temporary rotating device identifier that is not associated with any specific person. GLA uses this information to improve location accuracy and provide location-based services, including by building crowdsourced maps of Wi-Fi access points and mobile network towers.

You can turn off GLA at any time in your Android device’s location settings. Your Android device’s location will continue to work even if GLA is turned off, and the device will rely only on GPS and device sensors to estimate device location.

How does Google know my location?

Depending on the products you’re using and settings you choose, Google may use different types of location information to help make some services and products you use more helpful.

This location information can come from real-time signals, like your IP address or from your device, and also your saved activity on Google sites and services. Here are the main ways Google may get information about your location.

From your IP address

An IP address, also called an Internet Protocol address, is a number that is assigned to your computer or device by your Internet Service Provider. IP addresses are used to make the connection between your devices and the websites and services you use.

Like many other internet services, Google may use information about the general area that you’re in to provide some basic services—relevant results, such as when someone does a search asking what time it is, or keeping your account safe by detecting unusual activity, such as a sign-in from a new city.

Keep in mind: Devices need an IP address in order to send and receive internet traffic. IP addresses are roughly based on geography. This means that any apps, services, or websites you use, including google.com, may be able to infer and use some information about your general area from your IP address.

From your saved activity

If you’re signed in to your Google Account and have Web & App Activity turned on, your activity data on Google sites, apps, and services may be saved in your account’s Web & App Activity. Some activity may include information about the general area you were in when using the Google service. When you search for something using a general area, your search will use an area of at least 3 sq km, or expand until the area represents the locations of at least 1,000 people. This helps protect your privacy.

In some cases, areas that you have searched from in the past may be used to estimate a relevant location for your search. For example, if you search for coffee shops while in Chelsea, Google might show results for Chelsea in future searches.

You can view and control your Web & App Activity at My Activity .

If you’re not signed in to your Google Account, Google may store some location information for previous searches from the device you’re using to help provide more relevant results and recommendations. If you turn off Search customization, Google won’t use previous search activity to estimate your location. Learn more about how to search and browse privately.

From home or work addresses you saved

You might choose to save places to your Google Account that are important to you, such as your home or your work. If you set your home or work addresses, they can be used to help you do things more easily, such as getting directions or finding results closer to your home or work, and to show you more useful ads.

You can edit or delete your home or work addresses anytime in your Google Account .

From your device

How google apps use location from your device.

Devices have settings or permissions that you can use to control whether your precise location is available to apps, including Google’s apps like Search and Maps . This kind of precise location is useful in apps, like Google Maps, to give directions or help you get useful nearby search results. For example, you’ll get more relevant search results for things like local places and weather information when precise location settings or permissions are on.

Both iOS and Android have settings for app location permissions that you can turn on or off. You can let apps use your location to provide location-based features and services. Keep in mind, it’s sometimes necessary for apps to store your precise location temporarily so that they can quickly give you helpful results, or save battery by avoiding the need to keep updating location.

Some apps need access to your device location in the background, such as Find My Device, or if you want to use certain features, like Location Sharing.

For more information on how location works on your Android device, see here .

How are Location History and Web & App Activity saved in my Google Account?

Over the coming months and continuing in 2024, the Location History setting will change. Current Location History users are being notified when this change affects their account and, once they are notified, they will begin seeing the name Timeline in their account and app settings. For those already using Timeline, including users who turned on Timeline directly, the information provided in this page about location data in Location History applies to their use of Timeline. Learn more .

Location History and Web & App Activity

Location History and Web & App Activity are Google Account settings that use location. Here’s an overview of each. Keep in mind, other features or products may also collect or store location information.

Location History

If you turn on Location History, it will create Timeline, a personal map that helps you remember places you’ve been, and routes and trips you’ve taken.

Location History is turned off by default. If you turn on Location History, your precise device location is regularly saved, for every eligible mobile device that has the Location Reporting setting turned on. These device locations are used to build your Timeline, even when Google apps aren’t being used.

To make Google experiences more useful for everyone, Location History can be used to

• show information, such as popular times and environmental insights, based on anonymized location information
• detect and prevent fraud and abuse
• improve and develop Google services, including ads products

Location History can also help businesses estimate the likelihood that people visit their stores because of an ad.

You can review, edit, and delete what’s saved in your Timeline at any time. To see if you’ve turned on Location History, visit your Activity Controls . There, you’ll be able to control the Location History setting and control which devices are reporting their location.

How often your precise location is collected as part of the Location History setting varies. For example, if you’re using navigation in Google Maps, it might be collected multiple times per minute. But if you’re not actively using your phone, it could be once every few hours.

How long Location History data is saved depends on your settings—you can choose to automatically delete this data once it’s 3, 18, or 36 months old, or keep the data until you delete it.

Keep in mind

If you turn off Location History

• Google will continue to store any past Location History data you’ve saved until you delete it, or it will be deleted after a period of time that you’ve chosen as part of your auto-delete settings.
• Turning off Location History doesn’t impact how location information is saved or used by Web & App Activity or other Google products, e.g., based on your IP address. You may still have other settings that save location information.

To see if you’ve turned on Location History, visit your Activity Controls . Learn more .

Web & App Activity

Web & App Activity data is used to make your experience more personalized in Maps, Search, and other Google services. It can also be used to show you more relevant ads, depending on your ads settings. Web & App Activity will work across your devices wherever you are signed into your account.

When Web & App Activity is turned on, Google will save data about the things you do across Google services in your account’s Web & App Activity . This includes associated information, like the general area where you used a Google service.

For example, if you search for weather information and get results for a location sent from your device, this activity, including the general area your device was in when you searched, is saved to your Web & App Activity. The precise location that your device sent is not stored, only the location’s general area is stored. The saved location, which can be used to help Google determine a more relevant location in a future search, can come from the IP address or your device. This saved location is automatically deleted from your Web & App Activity after 30 days.

Web & App Activity data helps Google to understand general areas that are relevant for you, and include results for those areas when you do things like search.

You can review and delete location and other information saved with your Web & App Activity, or turn it off, by visiting your Activity Controls . Turning off Web & App Activity will stop saving your future activity data.

When you turn off Web & App Activity

• You may still have saved activity, which may be used until you delete it. You can delete this anytime. Your saved location information is still automatically deleted after 30 days.
• Turning off Web & App Activity doesn’t impact how location information is saved or used by other settings, such as Location History. You may still have other types of location information saved as part of other settings, including IP address.

To see if you’ve turned on Web & App Activity, visit your Activity Controls . Learn more

How does Google use location information that is pseudonymous or anonymous?

Google uses anonymized and pseudonymized location information to help enhance people’s privacy. Anonymized information generally cannot be associated with any individual. Pseudonymized information may be tied to a unique identifier, such as a string of numbers, rather than more personally identifiable information such as a person’s account, name, or email address. Anonymized and pseudonymized location information may be used by Google in its products and services for purposes such as advertising or trends.

Users may be able to reset certain pseudonymous identifiers linked to location information. For example, people can reset certain pseudonymous identifiers by resetting advertising IDs on their Android devices. In addition, Google automatically resets certain pseudonymous identifiers to enhance user privacy, including for GLA, the device setting that users can control to improve location-based service and accuracy on their devices.

Separately, Google may use anonymized location information. For example, people can tap on places in Google Maps, e.g., a restaurant or a park, and see trends from those places in an area. Location information used to build trends, like popular times, cannot be used to identify an individual. If Google does not have enough information to provide accurate and anonymous busyness information, it doesn’t appear on Google.

Google also offers people who are signed-out other ways to manage information associated with their browser or device, including the Search customization setting, YouTube settings, and ads settings. Learn more

Learn more about Google’s use of location information in the Google Privacy Policy . Learn more about how Google retains collected data and how Google anonymizes data .

How long is location information retained by Google?

The Google Privacy Policy describes our retention practices for user data, including location information that Google collects. Location information is collected for different periods of time, depending on what it is, how it’s used, and how people configure their settings.

Some location information is saved with your Google Account until you delete it

• Controlling retention and deletion: Both Location History and Web & App Activity have auto-delete options, which let you automatically delete data after 3, 18, or 36 months. You can also see this data by visiting Timeline and My Activity, and can delete specific activity or bulk-data according to your preference. You can always modify these settings or change your auto-delete option.
• Saving location information: Depending on the Google product or service, location information may be saved to your Google Account. For example, you may tag locations in Photos, or add a Home or Work address in Maps. You can delete this location information.

When you delete data, Google follows a policy to safely and completely remove it from your account so that the recovery of the data is no longer possible. First, the activity you delete is removed from view and no longer used to personalize your Google experience. Then, Google begins a process designed to safely and completely delete the data from Google storage systems. Learn more about how Google retains collected data .

Information that expires after a certain period of time

For other location information, as described in How Google retains data , there are times when—instead of being deleted manually—Google stores data for a set time before it’s deleted. The amount of time it takes to safely and completely delete it depends on the type of data, for example:

• Google anonymizes advertising data in server logs by removing part of the IP address after 9 months and cookie information after 18 months.
• Google deletes IP-based location and device location from your Web & App Activity after 30 days.

Information retained for extended time periods for limited purposes

As described in the Google Privacy Policy , “some data we retain for longer periods of time when necessary for legitimate business or legal purposes, such as security, fraud and abuse prevention, or financial record-keeping.” Learn more about our retention practices

How is location information used for ads?

To help show you more relevant ads.

Using location information helps make the ads that you see more relevant to the area you’re in, or to areas that are relevant to you. For example, if your device’s location setting is turned on and you search on Google for restaurants near you, your current device location may be used to show you ads for restaurants near you. Your location may also be used to show you distances to nearby businesses as part of ads on Google.

Google may also use your past browsing or app activity (such as your searches, website visits, or videos you watched on YouTube) and general areas saved as part of the Web & App Activity setting to show you more useful ads. For example, if you search for where to buy milk nearby on Google, you may see ads for grocery stores in the general area where you frequently browse Google Search while waiting for your bus or train.

Advertisers can only target ads to general areas, such as countries, cities, or regions around their business.

For additional information on our Display Network, visit the Help Center .

To help advertisers measure performance

Google may also use location information for analytics and measurement to understand how Google services are used. ​For example, if you have chosen to turn on Location History, Google uses this data to help advertisers estimate if people are likely visiting their stores because of online ads. Only anonymous estimates, not personal information, are shared with advertisers. To do this, Google connects your online activity data, such as ad clicks, with Location History data related to advertisers’ stores. Your Location History is not shared with advertisers.

To improve Google’s products and services

Google also uses location information to improve its ads products. For example, data about the ads you interact with, including the general area for the relevant activity, that is saved in your account may be aggregated and used in machine learning models that improve Smart Bidding tools. Your account data is not shared with advertisers.

How do I control how my location information is used to show ads?

You can control how your general areas where you’ve used Google sites and apps in the past can be used to influence which ads you see by accessing the Areas where you’ve used Google control in My Ad Center .

When Areas where you’ve used Google are on

When Ads Personalization and Areas where you’ve used Google are turned on, Google will use the data saved with your Web & App Activity related to the general areas where you’ve used Google sites and apps to personalize your ads.

When Areas where you’ve used Google are off

When Ads Personalization or Areas where you’ve used Google are turned off, Google doesn’t use the data saved with your Web & App Activity related to the general areas where you’ve used Google sites and apps to personalize your ads. Even when Areas where you’ve used Google is turned off, you may still see ads based on your current location and places you’ve set as your home and work in your Google Account.

In addition, if you are signed out, Google may still use your current location from your IP address or from your device to show you ads depending on your device and app settings.

For additional information on how to turn on and off personalized ads when you are signed out, see here .

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of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day.

Google/Purchased, "Digital Diary: How Consumers Solve Their Needs in the Moment," Smartphone users = 1000, Local searchers = 634, Purchases = 1,140, May 2016.

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The google cache browser for any page on internet..

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Google Cached Page

Google Cache is normally referred as the copies of the web pages cached by Google. Google crawls the web and takes snapshots of each page as a backup just in case the current page is not available. These pages then become part of Google's cache. These Google cached pages can be extremely useful if a site is temporary down, you can always access these page by visiting Google’s cached version.

Google web is usually updated in a few days. The actual time of the updates depends on the frequency the website updates itself.

Coral Cache

Coral Cache, also known as Coral Content Distribution Network or Coral, is a free peer-to-peer type web cache based on thepeer-to-peer content distribution network designed and operated by Michael Freedman. Coral uses the bandwidth of a world-wide network of web proxies and nameservers to mirror web content, often to avoid the Slashdot Effect or to reduce the load on websites servers in general.

Coral Cache is ususally not updated as frequently as Google web cache.

Archive.org Cache

The Archive.org, also known as Wayback Machine, is a digital archive of the World Wide Web and other information on the Internet created by the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization, based in San Francisco, California. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet. The service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the Archive calls a three dimensional index.

Browse or delete your Search history, and discover how your data helps Search and other Google services work better for you

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