Google Maps Holiday Shopping

By Barbara E. Hernandez

| Monday, Nov 26, 2012 | Updated 8:05 AM PDT

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Google Maps

Google Maps may help holiday shoppers by giving them indoor maps of their nearest big box stores.

"Simply zoom in on a building on Google Maps and you'll automatically see a detailed floor plan with helpful labels for gates at the airport, stores within the mall, departments within a retail shop, as well as ATMs, restrooms and more," Google announced on Google+.

Right now the search engine offers indoor maps for more than 10,000 different locations in nine countries, according to PC Magazine. According to the Google+ post, any vendors or venues can add their floorplan by using the Google Maps floor plan tool.

However, Google also lets these venues know that its floor plans are still in beta. "We’re still working out the kinks in how we process your floor plans, so right now we can’t give estimates on when your floor plans will appear in Google Maps for Android," Google said on its floor plan tool page.

When Google is able to map all major buildings and and venues, it will become an even more important tool for users to own -- even if they're on iOS.