Before we start looking at any plugins, it’s good to review the way Google Maps work.
There are several components in the Google Maps API family, all of which can be found on the Google Maps API Family page.
When working with WordPress, we are mainly interested in two of these APIs:
Static maps are practically images with no functionality. Including a static map into your page is as simple as inserting something like the following into your html:
http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=Brooklyn+Bridge,New+York,NY&zoom=13&size=600x300&maptype=roadmap &markers=color:blue%7Clabel:S%7C40.702147,-74.015794&markers=color:green%7Clabel:G%7C40.711614,-74.012318 &markers=color:red%7Ccolor:red%7Clabel:C%7C40.718217,-73.998284&sensor=false
There are several parameters that can be changed in the code above, and you can find an explanation of these parameters here.
On the other hand, JavaScript-powered maps have all the functionality you can see when accessing the Google Maps webpage. The Google Maps Javascript API Version 3 is now the official Javascript API and you should therefore be wary of plugins that use V2 as this might mean they are no longer being maintained. With V2 you also have the added step of having to include an API key to be able to use Google Maps.
Now that we know how Google Maps work, let’s take a look at the best Google Maps plugins for WordPress:
Mapify.it – Theme and Plugin
Mapify.it is a very powerful theme and Content Management System for WordPress for beginners and pros alike! Build a market-driven website that focuses on selling your idea or product with a proven design that stresses conversion rates, ROI, and a lot of “oohs and ahhs” due to the modern, app-like design. It’s easy to implement, and you’ll have your site up and running in no time.
The theme allows you to create an endless amount of pages, as well as a jQuery sub-menu that quickly and neatly organizes a lot of information in a small space. This keeps things sleek and compact, but also ensures that the user is centrally located on the page, rather than clicking endlessly and getting lost. The less clicks, the better, right?
Perhaps the most exciting part? Mapify.it is two sites in one! You can choose to display a huge image or map on your home page, or use the additional template to build a more traditional home page that showcases a video. In either case, this theme will sell your idea and/or product in style. The theme also includes equally-awesome templates for a Blog and Contact pages that include powerful social media software guaranteed to get people talking.
Finally, you’ll get a very sophisticated mapping software 100% free in the form of the Mapify.It plugin! This proprietary software implements fully-customized maps on your site (and we mean anywhere on your site, whether on a page, a blog entry, or your contact page). This type of mapping software has been developed after countless amounts of clients requested more control over Google Maps; since it didn’t exist.
Mapify.it – Plugin
Mapify.it allows 100% control over a map anywhere within your WordPress site, whether you choose to stick with Google Maps, or to use your very own images. It enhances Google Maps with custom pin-point graphics, limitless locations, and pop-up galleries, but also allows the use of ANY custom map image of your choosing, all while keeping the great zoom (2 levels of zoom with custom images, unlimited in Google Maps mode) and pan effect of Google maps!
MapPress
MapPress is by far the most popular Google Maps plugin for WordPress, being downloaded more than 150,000 times. It is probably the easiest way to create great-looking Google Maps and driving directions in your blog. The feature I like best from this plugin is the ability to drag and drop a marker onto the map. This is a great feature that is not found in any other plugins. There are loads of options you can set in its options panel.
MapPress also has a PRO version (paid plugin) which gives you extra features like:
- Marker icons: set different icons for each marker. More than 200 icons are included – or you use your own!
- Mashups: easily add a “mashup” overview map link to individual blog posts
- Widgets: easily add maps or mashups to your sidebar with MapPress widgets
- Custom fields: automatically create maps from addresses stored in custom fields
- Marker list: add a clickable table listing the markers on each map
- Remove link: remove the MapPress Pro link from the map
Although this is really a great plugin, I don’t like the fact that it inserts a ‘Powered by MapPress’ link at the bottom of your map.
5sec Google Maps
The author of this plugin describes it as follows: No setup. No code. No bulls**t. Just maps! [gmap]your address[/gmap]
We agree, it is really easy to use and a top choice if you just want to include a map with your address, no fancy stuff.
WP Google Maps
The easiest to use Map Plugin! Create custom Google Maps with high quality markers containing locations, descriptions, images and links. Add your customized Google map to your WordPress posts and/or pages quickly and easily with the supplied shortcode. No fuss. no iFrames and super easy to use!
Key Features
- WP Google Maps uses the latest Google Maps API (V3)
- Super easy to use, no coding required!
- Create as many map markers as you need by simply typing in the address.
- Edit your markers with the click of a button.
- Google Maps Streetview supported.
- Define your own width, height and zoom level for your Google Map.
- Create a map in less than a 30 seconds!
- WordPress 3.0 friendly.
- No advertising or links.
Interactive World Maps
This is a WordPress plugin to create as many maps as you want, with interactive and colored markers, continents, countries or regions.
You will be able to show hundreds of different kinds of maps, already included:
- A map of the entire world.
- A continent or a sub-continent. (Africa, Europe, Americas, Asia, Oceania and all their sub-continents)
- A country. (virtually all the countries in the world are included, featuring the most requested: USA, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil, India, Australia…)
- A country divided by its regions.
- A state in the United States.
- The United States divided by metropolitan areas.
- A state in the United States divided by metropolitan areas.
Where to use it?
This plugin is perfect for:
- Travel Websites – Create maps to display destinations and link to pages about a specific location
- Traveler Website – Display a map with destinations/countries visited
- Multinational Companies – Create maps of the cities/countries where they operate
- Small Companies – Show the location of the business in a country map
- NGO’s – Create maps of NGO projects around the world
- Infographics – Display simple to read maps with various information
- And much more other applications! Be creative!
Pronamic Google Maps
This is a really excellent plugin that provides a clean interface within your pages, posts or custom post types, where you can insert the Title, Description, Latitude and Longitude of your point. Once you enter this information you also get a real-time preview of your map, very useful. You can then choose the level of zoom or positioning of the map using your mouse on the map preview, and this will be saved when you save your post/page.
One downside of this plugin is that you have to add some code to your theme’s files in order for it to work. The instructions can be found here. The reason for this extra step is that the developers of this plugin chose not to use shortcodes:
“This plugin does not work with the WordPress shortcode API. Although it’s an very powerful technique, it’s not always very user friendly. Not all users understand the shortcodes.”
So what you need to do to get this plugin to work is open your theme’s PHP file for displaying posts, or pages, and add the following code:
<?php
if(function_exists('pronamic_google_maps')) {
pronamic_google_maps(array(
'width' => 290 ,
'height' => 200
));
}
?>
The parameters are thus chosen within the code above, you can specify the width and height of your map. I would actually prefer if these settings where selectable from the plugin’s options page, but again the developers chose not to put these options there in order not to pollute the WordPress database. I would tend to disagree as saving these settings in the database and using an options page would make the plugin more user friendly and it would also ensure that the plugin would work the same on any theme you choose. At present if you change theme the plugin won’t work, unless you enter the code above into each new theme you want to use.
Google Maps made Simple (WPGMappity)
Another excellent Google Maps plugin which provides an extra button next to the upload media buttons, clicking on this button will open a GUI for creating your map. You can insert multiple markers on each map and choose what HTML is displayed in each marker’s bubble. The map is then inserted into the post/page using a shortcode. It also works with Custom Post Types.
This plugin has a unique feature in that it saves your maps in a map library so you can just access the library and re-use your maps across several posts or pages. Pretty neat plugin overall, surely one of the best available.
WP Geo
WP Geo is another popular plugin and like MapPress gives you the ability to drag and drop the marker on the map. It has a very clean interface and a good set of options. It also works with Custom Post Types.
Two downsides of the plugin are:
- It uses the V2 API, which requires a key (I expect this to be fixed in the next version).
- You cannot enter HTML into the marker’s info bubble.
Google Map v3 Shortcode
This plugin allows you to add a google map into your post/page using shortcodes. It is really straightforward to implement and just works perfectly. It doesn’t have any options panel but gives you all the features you’d expect, including custom markers and the ability to insert html for the marker’s bubble. It doesn’t have the drag and drop functionality offered by MapPress, so you will have to either enter the address of your location or else use coordinates.
Features:
- multiple maps on the same post
- set map sizeset zoom level
- set map typeset location by latitude/longitude
- set location by address
- add marker
- add custom image as map icon
- add KML via URL link
- show trafficsupport for Google My Maps
Implementation examples can be found here.
Google Map Shortcode
One of the most complete Google Maps plugins. If only it had the ability to drag and drop markers it would be really great. This new version of Google Map Shortcode – WordPress Plugin uses the JavaScript Maps API V3. The new editor button allows to include the google map and multiples point in your blog with a couple of clicks. A lot of markers come with the plugin but also, it’s possible to upload a custom icon to be used as a marker. Some features:
- Editor button added, to include the points into the maps easily.
- Custom markers can be uploaded.
- Open Google Map in new window – included to the info windows.
- Post ID include as shortcode parameter.
- Based on Google Maps Javascript API Version 3.
- Faster and more applicable to mobile devices.
- Maps available in multiple languages.
- API key not required.
- Multiples points in a single map.
- Multiples maps in a single page.
- Posts can be deploy in the maps using the category id.
- Custom html for the info windows.
- Maps can be inserted everywhere.
Something I don’t like in this plugin is the fact that it doesn’t display the address within the shortcode, so you end up having maps in your Edit screen but not knowing where they actually point to without opening a preview pane. Also there is no way to edit an existing map you inserted.
Simple Google Map
Simple Google Map uses a shortcode to display the map on your post or page. It has no interface for choosing your point on the map. You can also choose to use your own CSS for styling of the map through the options panel. The shortcode name is SGM and here are the options:
- lat [int] – the latitude of the marker and the center of the map.
- lng [int] – the longitude of the marker and the center of the map.
- zoom [int] – the zoom level (0-19).
- type [int] – the starting map type. possible values are only ROADMAP, SATELLITE, HYBRID, or TERRAIN and must be in uppercase
- directionsto [string] – the destination address for getting directions. obviously you want this to be the address of your latitude longitude coordinates.
- content – what goes inside the infoWindow (speech bubble) that appears when the marker is clicked.
Google Map Generator
This is a really straightforward plugin that uses a shortcode or link that opens in a new window.
Using this plugin you can embed google map inside the post or link google map with a link as a popup. example:
- embed google map
{gmap|address|width|height}, - popup google map
Link Label.
One disadvantage is that it has very limited parameters, for example you cannot set the zoom level. Only recommended if you are looking for some simple functionality.
RomeLuv Maps
The RomeLuv plugin (quite a memorable name) is a very interesting addition to the collection of Google Maps plugins available for WordPress. Maybe the best way to understand what it does is to visit www.romeluv.com which is a Rome destination guide. In the www.romeluv.com/map page you can see that all the posts are linked into a global map.
This plugin automatically places a Google Map inside every post where you need to: just write an address in a specific box which is automatically added in the post editing window. The map can be placed before (default) or after the content in your single post template. The cool bouncing marker will also show the address if clicked. It is easily stylable with CSS.
The only negative thing I found about this plugin is that it automatically inserts a small credit link to this page on your global map. I suggest that the plugin author makes this optional in line with WordPress official policy.
Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
One of our readers has pointed us in the direction of this plugin, which we had missed in our review. This is another amazing Google maps plugin, with a very clean interface, definitely one to check out before making your final decision.
The Google maps widget that comes with this plugin is especially useful, you can see it in action on Alyona Travels (in the sidebar).
Get Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
Geo Mashup
This plugin lets you save location information with posts, pages, and other WordPress objects. These can then be presented on interactive Google maps in many ways.
Geo Mashup, like WordPress, has a simple interface for basic features, templates for control of output, and APIs for endless customization options. Some popular features are:
- Use Google Maps v2 or v3, or OpenStreetMap as a map provider.
- Global maps can present your posts in many ways They can show just one category or custom post type, for example Clicking on a post marker shows a customizable summary of the post or page in an info window
- Location can be saved for all post types (including pages) users, and comments
- Synchronize Geodata with the Geo location mobile client and other plugins
- Support for both standard WordPress shortcodes and template tags to add maps to your site.
- Reverse geocoding to fill in address information for locations
- GeoRSS automatically added to feeds
- Attach KML files to posts and pages
- Connect category markers with a colored line
If you need features that are aren’t listed here, check the documentation and the tag reference.
Leaflet Maps Marker
Leaflet Maps Marker allows you to pin, organize and share your favorite spots through your WordPress powered site easily. You can use maps from OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, Google Earth, Bing Maps or custom maps and additionally display your spots in innovative ways like through augmented-reality browsers.
Conclusion
While MapPress retains its title as the most downloaded and most popular Google Maps plugin for WordPress, there are now a few excellent challengers. If you don’t want to pay for MapPress Pro and don’t want a ‘Powered by..’ link on your map consider using similar plugins such as ‘Pronamic Google Maps’ or ‘WP Geo’
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I’m new to the Google Map API – so please bear with me. I want to create a map where people can enter a location for something within the city that needs fixing. For example, they might mark a big pothole or a street light that doesn’t work.
There might be several ways to have that information sent in, so would I need a plugin like one of the above to pull this off or would it be a standalone coding job?
Thanks for the great review. I didn’t realize that there were this many choices for mapping plugins.
Very interesting idea Craig, I think it would be possible to use one of the above plugins, for example you could allow users to submit an address or coordinates and then use one of these plugins to plot the map using that data. The simplest way would be to enable users to send this data via a form, then you can add the point yourself. However for further automation you could let them directly add points on the map. This would require further customisation and I am not aware of any solution that can do this out of the box. You would somehow need to show the map administration part on the front end for users to select the points. It’s quite an interesting project and I’m sure it can be done given some thought.
Hi,
I’ve just published a free wordpress plugin enabling you to auto-embed google maps just writing an address on each post.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/romeluv-google-maps-for-wordpress/
It can also display a global map with all the posts displayed as markers – pretty cool and easy. And free of course
I’d love you to consider adding it to the list as it very lightweight and easy to hack (only one file) yet takes care of geocoding & everything pretty straightforwardly!
Reply
Nice plugin, adding it to the list, I recommend you make the credit link optional though, in line with WordPress guidelines. Here’s an excerpt from a forum post by Mark Jaquith: “Our policy is that you make the user take an affirmative action (like checking a box/radio button) in order to enable a credits link.”
Thanks for pointing this out, I’ll consider it maybe in a forthcoming release. No biggie if my users comment / disable the link, I won’t be too angry
hi,
i want to know where the data of my map is loaded in mappress plugin.how can i show the location data as well as the google map in my post?Please give me advise.
sujon
Have you tried the WordPress forums, specifically support for mappress? The developer should help you out with this: http://wordpress.org/tags/mappress-google-maps-for-wordpress
Wow, great timing, thanks for posting this roundup.
I was just looking for a mapping plugin for one of our clients that would let us add custom markers – shebang – look no more.
Gracias.
Welcome, glad to be of help!
Very interesting and great timing. You forget to post the download link to the RomeLuv Maps plugin. After looking for it myself, I saw it was a V2 version… Too bad.
Thanks Pieter added the link now, seems compatible with WP 3, not sure where you found the WP2 version.
I ment the Google Maps V2 api, not the WP version
.
ah ok
Which one of these maps can contain multiple locations in 1 map added to a wp page? It seems like all only allow 1 location per map.
Hi Justin try WP GMappity it allows mulitple markers.
I have service providers that work within a certain mileage radius. I’m looking for a plugin that would match a clients address with the service provider. Is there one out there….someplace?
That’s interesting functionality, I haven’t seen any plugin which does that out of the box however. If you want this functionality and would consider hiring us for developing it feel free to contact us and we’ll look into the details.
Hi,
I find this blog extremely helpful for me, thanks Jean Galea and everyone here!!
I was just looking for a mapping plugin that would let us add custom markers on the map, can you help with suggestions!
Welcome, Pronamic’s plugin lets you use custom markers. From the changelog of version 2.1.2: Adjusted the Google Maps mashup JavaScripts, now each post can have it’s own custom marker icon
Hello Jean
Are you aware of any Google/Yahoo/Bing map plugins that do pin clustering? I have around 2000 locations.
Need a WordPress solution that does this http://e85prices.com/e85map.php
Not really sorry Dan, maybe someone else can point you in the right direction. Definitely let us know if you find a solution though!
Thanks Jean,
I just don’t understand how wordpress Map developers could be missing out on something so basic as Marker Manger /Clustering http://code.google.com/apis/maps/articles/toomanymarkers.html
I had the E85 Map done a few years ago using clustering.. pulls from mysql db and updates on the fly as new locations are listed.
Looks like I will hire it out for the wordpress site I am working out..
btw Jean off topic a bit but really enjoy your design work http://www.jeangalea.com/portfolio/
oh all praise for the design should go to kennethcachia.com, he’s the man behind the design, I was responsible for development.
As I understand each of the plugins needs the coordinates entered into a special box on the web interface, right? I have a special situation: the sender can only send emails (with the pluin Postie)! Can one of the plugins you described take the coordinates from the email?
You would have to do some custom coding to achieve that, as far as I know there aren’t any plugins that offer this feature yet.
Thanks for the very helpful survey. Have you looked at the “Comprehensive Google Maps Plugin”? It looks like it has almost everything you discuss as positive points in your reviews.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comprehensive-google-map-plugin/
Thanks!
Looks good Ram, will be adding it, thanks for your contribution.
There is a new WordPress plugin called MapNavigator. It organizes all your MapPress markers and displays them in an easy to navigate hierarchy. This plugin imports a Map Navigation file into your WordPress blog. The Map Navigation file defines one or more Continents, Countries, Regions, States and Cities. The plugin creates Posts that each contain a MapPress map or mashup that provide a linked navigation of the geography using your organization’s name, image file and icon in the Post’s Post, Excerpt and on the Map markers. The Map Navigation hierarchy can then be added to your themes header or provided as a link so that your organization can locate its members Posts or Pages by Geographical area. The plugin also provides an affiliate Register script that adds an Affiliate to your Map Navigation hierarchy along with their link and image when they join your organization. Any post can be added to the Map Navigation hierarchy using the Map Taxonomy tags and a Custom field used by the MapPress plugin.
Check it out:
http://mapclick.org
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mapnavigator/
Great article – you may want to look at GeoMashup by cyberhobo as well. It’s got a bit of a learning curve, but does some nifty global maps. There’s even a radius search available on github that adds even more functionality. I’ve got the unmodified versions working on my site now with plans to modify this in the near future.
Hi Jean
Please have a look at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-google-maps/ and let me know what you think. I developed it a few weeks ago and it’s starting to accumulate a high number of downloads. I would love it if you could add it to your post.
Kind regards,
Nick
Nice work Nick, definitely adding it to the list.
Does anyone know of a store/service locator plug-in which uses the API v3 from Google? Pretty much all of the WP plug-ins available with a zip code search functionality, currently, require an API Key – which Google no longer issues. This would be a great help. I wouldn’t mind paying for such a tool.
Hey Jean – great list, thanks for putting it together!
I’m looking for a plugin for my travel blog. I’d like to essentially have a map on every post that shows the location of the story – but ALSO has the locations and links to every other story I’ve done.
Do any of these apps allow you to essentially have a common database of markers but customise the map for each page to have the relevant marker as the focus? (Does that make sense?)
Cheers.
Not sure about this scenario, you’ll have to try them out and see whether they fit your purpose, as its been a while since I wrote this.
10x a lot man.. works like a charm with my custom posts!! love it – adds a lot of color to each review i create
thanks
Hi Jean,
I’m doing a website for a local restaurant. Could you recommend a plugin for WP, that would include a google map and reviews (ability to see past reviews and write new ones)? They want to be able to moderate reviews too.
Any ideas would be a MASSIVE help.
Thanks in advance.
Clare
Hey, nice list. We will soon release our first free plugin for google maps. We dubbed it Google Map It for DirectoryPress. Please check out our map functions for creating a google map mashup for directory websites in our live demo.
These plugins are all awesome, and we will at some stage attempt to make another free plugin, just for WordPress. Bookmarked for resource.
Hope you will also let me mention our first WordPress based map project, called Latitude Longitude Finder. Geocoders are geeks
hello jean, nice post. just wanna ask which one of these posts can let me add different maps per post. and can be seen on the sidebar. thanks in advance for the help. cheers!!!
I discover this plugin and i think you forgot it in this cool post !
http://codecanyon.net/item/google-maps-module-with-geolocation-wp-plugin/843881
Hi Jean,
I’ve also emailed you personally this question, so please disregard if you get both.
I’m curious as to your thoughts on something I have for a potential client. My client is in the air charter business and wants to be able to display a map that when a zip, city, etc. is typed in it would show the closest airports (from a database) that they fly to so user can click the airport nearby and that location would load to a form. They would do the same for the to airport.
Do you have any thoughts to any easy wp plugin for this concept?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts you have on this.
Best regards,
Michael
Hi Jean,
I am the developer of “Leaflet Maps Marker” – a full-features mapping plugin which allows you to pin, organize & show your favorite places through OpenStreetMap/WMTS, Google Maps/Earth (KML), GeoJSON or Augmented-Reality browsers and is available in currently 8 languages. For a demo and a full list of features please visit http://www.mapsmarker.com.
Although it uses mainly OSM as basemaps, I´d really appreciate if you could add my plugin to your list! (support for Google Maps is planned in one of the next versions
regards,
Robert
Thanks for letting us know about this Robert.
Leaflet Maps Marker is really nice. I especially like the possibility to add several marker styles, create different layers with many markers on them and of course the choice of other maps than just google maps.
Of course there is still quite a bit of development to be done, e.g. marker clustering and the possibility to create a new marker directly out of a post or via the WP iPhone app.
Hi SkyWombat,
the development of Leaflet Maps Marker is by long not finished now – there are a lot of new features on the roadmap – I just have to find time to implement them
Marker clustering is one of those, adding markers directly from post edit screen also. Adding via WP iPhone app is also a good idea – will check if I can hook into this app somehow…
regards,
Robert
Hello. Thank you very much for sharing all this information.
I am interested in creating a page in my wp site with a map inside. But I would like to add markers on the maps and when readers click on them, to open the relative article that I have posted about the specific’s area marker.
Is it possible?
Thank you very much in advance
Hi Spyros,
with Leaflet Maps Marker, this is possible too.
regards,
Robert
Hi Spyros
WP Google Maps can do this.
Thanks for the round-up of maps. I am looking to
Search box for the user to type in their address or part of.
Google/Bing maps to show the address on a map
The marker dragged to indicate the actual house in question (BTW this is for the install of solar panels)
the location to be added into the form do the user can send it along with there contact info.
I’m yet to find anything that does this but I have seen a couple of HTML implementations
A pluggin that delivers this would be ideal – has anyone come across or created anything that fits the bill?
Have you found your ideal plugin Martin? Would be great if you could share here.
Sadly not found a WP plug-in that allows the user to find an areas (say the post code of their house or field) and then be able to highlight the roof or field edge and send the results via a form to the site owner so that they can see the same data. I’ve seen a few implementations on other sites but nothing as a plugging. – any one else come across this?
Great post – some good plugins to look at. Just a question in case you know before I go and hunt through them individually!
Most of these plugins allow you to create a map with multiple markers. But do any offer a search bar, so visitors to my site could insert their town or zip/postcode and the map would zoom there, showing the markers nearest to them?
That,s really nice but I have found something which set it up as background.. you can check it out here. This only work with optin pages to build list. http://harrybhanot.com/geo/how-to-build-a-high-converting-squeeze-page/
I’m looking for a map plugin that is user driven, so that visitors to the site can add their own pin or mark to the map. This would have to be from a page on the site – not from the dashboard. Anyone know of a plugin that allows that?
Hi.
WP Google Maps – Visitor Generated Markers plugin does exactly what your asking for
Leaflet Maps Marker v3.6 (which will be released in about a month) will include a native REST API which will allow flexible adding of pins – for example from forms or by external applications / plugins. For more details please see the API docs at http://mapsmarker.com/mapsmarker-api
best,
Robert
We may need some custom development. Will either of these handle that?
due to pro development I currently dont have any ressources for custom dev, but I can refer you to John Cotton (http://www.dynamicarray.co.uk/) which is experienced with my plugin and could possible help you here…
Hi. Not sure if there is an out-of-box solution for this, but I am looking for a map WordPress plugin that will display geocentric pins for cities and will display the city name. Ideally, I would love it if the user could pick 3 different city “pins” on the map and then communicate these selections back to wordpress to be fed back into my CRM.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated!