Websites To Pay To Use Google Maps

Highest-traffic sites to pay a small fee to embed the widely used application that had been free for seven years.

Starting Jan. 1, 2012, Google will charge websites that use its amazing Google Maps service if they go over the daily threshold of 25,000 hits. Embedded Google Maps are found on countless hotel, restaurant, and travel services, but their excessive use has led Google to roll out plans that could cost sites about $4 for every additional 1,000 visitors after that initial 25,000. Google says this means that only 0.35 per cent of sites with Google Maps will ever have to pay anything, and that the fees will help the web giant maintain and update the hugely popular application. So long as it's free for the rest of us, we're cool with it.