Embedding a Google Map on your website now requires a credit card
Image from Pixabay
By Carla
In May, Google announced that it was renaming its Map services to ‘Google Maps Platform’ and merging “Standard and Premium plans to form one pay-as-you go pricing plan for [their] core products.”
If you have a website with a map embedded onto your contact or some other page, this change of service will affect you.
Previously, a map could be embedded onto a page without the use of an API key. Google will no longer allow this. Users will have to create API keys to continue to display their maps. In order to acquire an API key you have to add a credit card to your account. With each API you receive “$200 in free usage for Maps, Routes, and Places every month”. This ‘free-trial’ lasts for 12 months. New pricing changes will go into effect starting July 16, 2018.
If you have a website that includes a Google Map you can go here to register an API key. Follow the steps to add your billing details and make sure to restrict your API key usage to specific referrers.
To generate your map iframe with your API key included, go here.
If that doesn’t appeal to you, we have found two alternatives to the Google Maps Platform:
With Waze you can embed a map onto a page for free. It will look like this:
With OSM WP Plugin you can embed a map into your site that looks like this:
by Carla