Safari 16.0 Macos 12.6
Sometime recently safari has started to autopopulate apple maps instead of google maps. I like most of you hate apple maps and want to continue using google maps.
How do I stop this from happening? I never use apple maps so I feel like there was an update somewhere recently where apple is preferring their maps instead of their competitors.
You can open history (⌘+Y) and search for https://maps.apple.com and delete all results. It should remove `maps.apple.com from your suggestions.
I would also note that maps.google.com is not the address for Google Maps, it responds 302 MOVED which might cause browsers to de-prioritize it as it doesn't have content.
maps.google.com redirects just fine for me, always has done, and is a whole lot easier to start typing in the top bar than www.google.com/maps which is where it redirects to.
The result is based on habit; the system learning your usage patterns - so long as you don't keep deleting History & Cookies. Every time you sweep your usage patterns, or use aggressive blocking tactics, ad blockers or VPNs etc, then the algorithms have to start again.
A "Top Hit" is somewhere you have been before, it's not the same as a Siri suggestion. Which lands at the top of the list is a simple algorithm - the one you either have been to most, or most recently if there's not enough habitual data to make a decision.
If you use one more than the other, it will swing the other way in a short while. I only need to type m & Google maps is the autofill. I use Google Maps a lot; several times daily.
My partner has completely different usage patterns. She hardly, if ever looks at any map, so it's not 'habitual' at all. On her machine I have to type map before anything map-like is suggested at all. There is no suggested auto-fill or top hit because I doubt she has ever visited any map site, ever. Apple maps at that point isn't even in the suggestion list
