Closed
There are various reasons that a place may not be open for normal business in the long term:
- It may be permanently closed or moved away.
- It may be under long-term renovation or equipment overhaul, as is sometimes the case with shopping malls, hotels and gas stations.
- It may still be under construction but already well known, as is the case with some large destination stores and attractions.
Whatever the reason, Waze users should not be routed without warning to places that are not open for normal business. However, because Waze includes third-party results in searches for places, without a linked Waze place, users may end up navigating to a third-party result with no way of knowing that the place is not open or does not even exist. In the United States, the only external provider of Waze search results is Google Maps, and places that are marked permanently closed in Google Maps do not appear in Waze search. Therefore, after confirming that a place is not open for business due to any of the above reasons, the following procedures should be used:
| General Process Steps | Specific Process Steps | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Permanently Closed | Temporarily Closed | Under Construction | |||
| 1 | Select the place in WME, or create it if it exists only in Google Maps and is open, that is, not marked permanently closed. | ||||
| 2 | Check each existing external provider link in Google Maps to see whether it is open or permanently closed. | ||||
| 3 | Search the general area in Google Maps to find other relevant places that are listed as open. | ||||
| 4 | In WME click "Add linked Google place" to search for each relevant, open Google place, and create links to them (the minimum rank to add linked Google places is 2). | ||||
| 5 | If your place is linked to | no open Google places: | Delete the place and stop. | Continue to the next step. | |
| open Google places: | Continue to the next step. | ||||
| 6 | Add at the end of the name | if open date known: | (permanently closed) | (reopens [date]) | (opens [date]) |
| if open date unknown: | (temporarily closed) | (under construction) | |||
| 7 | Add a note in the description | if open date known: | Reported closed [date] | Reported closed [date], reopens [date] | Opens [date] |
| if open date unknown: | Reported closed [date] | Coming soon | |||
| 8 | Reduce open hours | to one minute per week at a time least likely to be viewed, such as 03:00-03:01, Monday morning. | |||
| 9 | Reduce visibility | Change all categories to Other; if a Parking Lot, uncheck "Accessible parking" before changing the category. If an area place, change to point. | |||
| 10 | Submit third-party correction and/or wait. | Submit a correction in Google Maps to mark each place permanently closed. | Wait until reopening. | Wait until opening. | |
| 11 | Final cleanup. | Delete the Waze place after each linked Google place is marked permanently closed. | Change the Waze place back to normal after reopening. | Change the Waze place to normal after opening. | |