GeoVerse Maps – Google Maps Block for WordPress vs Slick Google Map

GeoVerse Maps adds a real Google Maps block to the WordPress block editor. Drop it into a post or page, search for your address, and you have a working map — no Google Cloud console, no API key, and nothing to configure just to get a location on the page. When you’re ready for more, add a free Google Maps API key (it takes a couple of minutes) and the rest of the plugin opens up: custom marker icons, color-coded map themes, a location search box, turn-by-turn directions, live traffic and transit layers, and a filterable list view for sites with more than a couple of pins on the map. It’s built for people who need a Google Maps Gutenberg block that just works — store locators, contact pages, real estate listings, restaurant “find us” pages, or any site where showing where you are actually matters for local SEO. Why people use it You don’t need an API key to get started. Most Google Maps plugins send you straight to the Google Cloud billing console before you see anything. GeoVerse Maps shows a working embedded map out of the box, and upgrades cleanly once you do add a key. It’s a native block, not a shortcode. Everything lives inside the block editor — align it, resize it, style it like any other block. No shortcode syntax to remember, no page-builder lock-in. It scales from one pin to a full store locator. Add as many markers as you need, group them by category, and let visitors filter, search, and get directions without leaving the page. It’s built with local SEO in mind. Clean markup, fast-loading assets that only load on pages where the block is actually used, and a clear presentation of your address that both visitors and search engines can read. It’s responsive by default. Maps resize properly on phones and tablets without any extra CSS from you. Who it’s for Local businesses — shops, clinics, offices, and agencies with one location or several. Restaurants, hotels, and venues that need a clear “find us” page. Real estate and travel sites showing property locations or destination context. Multi-location brands that need a proper store locator with filtering. Agencies building client sites who want a map block that doesn’t require explaining API keys to every client. What’s included A native Google Maps block for the WordPress block editor Custom marker icons, with unlimited markers per map Multiple map style presets (or paste your own custom style JSON) Info windows with rich text — hours, phone numbers, links, short descriptions A visitor-facing location search box Marker categories with front-end filtering Turn-by-turn “Get Directions” from the visitor’s location Optional traffic, transit, and bicycling map layers A clickable marker list view alongside or below the map, for longer location lists Fullscreen mode and responsive height controls The Google Maps API key can be set right from the block’s own settings panel, or from one central settings screen Credits Map experience powered by Google Maps. Built for modern WordPress — blocks, themes, and current performance practices.

A simple, intuitive Google Map / OpenStreetMap plugin that installs as a Gutenberg block and a shortcode. Packed with useful features — geo-mashup of posts, KML overlays, marker icons, address geocoding — and fully free and open source. No subscriptions, no SaaS, no telemetry. Slick Google Map lets you embed maps using either: Google Maps — requires your own API key (configurable per-site). Leaflet / OpenStreetMap — no key required, free tile service. Features: Insert maps via the Slick Google Map Gutenberg block (with a multi-marker repeater) or the [slick_map] shortcode. Classic Editor users get a Slick Map media button above the editor that opens a dialog with the same repeater. Marker geo-mashup — aggregate every post/page that has lat/lng custom fields onto a single map. KML and GPX overlays — drop a track or boundary onto any map. KML works on both providers; GPX is Leaflet-only. Address geocoding — write address="Vienna, Austria" instead of coordinates. Geocoded once per address and cached for 30 days. Uses your Google Geocoding API key if set, falls back to Nominatim/OSM otherwise. Coordinate formats — accepts decimal (48.2082) and DMS (48°12'29.5"N) in any marker. Marker icons — bundled set of 13 modern SVG pins (default, restaurant, lodging, cafe, bar, museum, airport, rail, shop, camera, mountain, castle, religious), plus your own URL. Legacy filenames from the 2014-era plugin are auto-aliased. Map controls — toggle the zoom / map-type / street-view / scroll-wheel / drag controls per map. Layers — Google bicycling and traffic overlays on demand. 45° aerial tilt — passed through to Google as tilt: 45. Only takes visible effect on vector Map IDs, or on satellite/hybrid view over the specific cities where Google has 45° aerial imagery. No effect on raster maps or on Leaflet. Custom Google styles JSON — for branded maps without cloud-styled Map IDs. Wiki-style links in marker titles: [[https://example.com|Display text]] becomes a real link. Compatible with WordPress page caches — no per-visitor state in the rendered HTML, no AJAX side-effects. No fixed-cost dependencies — Leaflet / OSM is free; Google Maps is pay-as-you-go with a generous monthly free tier (≈28k map loads/month at no charge). History: Slick Google Map 1.0 is a rewrite of the original plugin version 0.3, which was itself a fork of the Comprehensive Google Map Plugin by Alexander Zagniotov (2011–2014). Version 1.0.0 is a complete rewrite for WordPress 6.4+ and PHP 8.1+ — see the “Parity & rewrite” section below for what changed. Insert a map via the Slick Google Map Gutenberg block, the Slick Map media button in the Classic Editor, or the [slick_map] shortcode. Optionally aggregate posts/pages that have lat/lng custom fields onto a single map (“geo-mashup”), and overlay a KML or GPX file. Shortcode [slick_map lat="48.2082" lng="16.3738" zoom="13" height="400px" provider="leaflet"] Geo-mashup of posts and pages: [slick_map mashup="post,page"] KML or GPX overlay: [slick_map kml="https://example.com/track.kml"] [slick_map provider="leaflet" gpx="https://example.com/hike.gpx"] KML works with both providers; GPX requires the Leaflet provider (Google’s Maps JS API does not natively render GPX). Markers with addresses and custom icons (nested [marker] children): [slick_map zoom="6"] [marker address="Vienna, Austria" title="Home"] [marker lat="52.5" lng="13.4" title="Berlin" icon="https://example.com/star.png"] [/slick_map] Each [marker] accepts address (geocoded once and cached) or explicit lat/lng, plus optional title and icon. The icon attribute accepts either an https://… URL pointing to your own image, or one of the bundled short names: default, restaurant, lodging, cafe, bar, museum, airport, rail, shop, camera, mountain, castle, religious. Legacy filenames from the 2014-era plugin (1-default.png, museum_naval.png, hotel_0star.png, …) are auto-aliased to the nearest modern equivalent. For geo-mashup markers, set a marker_icon custom field on each post to override the default pin for just that post. Map controls and layers Toggle Google’s built-in UI: zoomcontrol, maptypecontrol, streetviewcontrol, scrollwheel, draggable (all default true). Google-only overlays: showbike="true", showtraffic="true". 45° aerial tilt: tilt="45". Only takes visible effect on a Google vector Map ID, or in satellite/hybrid view over cities where Google has 45° imagery. Ignored elsewhere. Custom Google map styles JSON: styles='[{"featureType":"poi","stylers":[{"visibility":"off"}]}]' (ignored when a Map ID is configured — cloud styling takes precedence). DMS coordinates Marker lat / lng values accept either decimal (48.2082) or DMS form (48°12'29.5"N). Wiki-style links Marker titles support [[https://example.com|Display text]] to embed real links, or [[Plain Page]] for unlinked highlighted text. Geocoding When a Google Maps API key is configured the plugin uses the Google Geocoding API (same Cloud project as Maps; enable Geocoding API alongside Maps JavaScript). Otherwise it falls back to Nominatim/OpenStreetMap. Results are cached in a 30-day transient per address, so each unique address is geocoded at most once. Privacy Using the Google provider loads scripts and tiles from maps.googleapis.com. Using the Leaflet/OSM provider loads tiles from tile.openstreetmap.org and the Leaflet library from unpkg.com. Choose the provider that matches your site’s privacy posture. Parity & rewrite Version 1.0.0 is a complete rewrite of the 2015 codebase. The old plugin’s PHP and JavaScript were written against WordPress 3.6 and PHP 5, used the long-retired Google JSAPI loader, geocoded addresses on every page view, shipped 300+ marker PNGs of mixed provenance, and had several unauthenticated AJAX write paths in wp-admin. Re-issuing it as-is on a modern stack was not viable, so the codebase was rewritten from scratch around the same shortcode vocabulary. What you keep. Posts written against the very old [google-map-v3 ...] shortcode still render. The plugin registers google-map-v3 as a back-compatibility alias that maps the still-useful attributes (width, height, zoom, kml, maptype, addmarkermashup, addmarkerlist, maptypecontrol, zoomcontrol, streetviewcontrol, scrollwheel, draggable, showbike, showtraffic, tiltfourtyfive, styles) onto the new renderer. The Google provider is selected by default for these legacy shortcodes, the old addmarkerlist="addr{}icon{}desc|..." packed format is parsed transparently, and the most-used legacy icon filenames (1-default.png, museum_naval.png, hotel_0star.png, …) are aliased to the bundled modern SVG set. What’s gone for good. Some features can’t come back because the upstream services or APIs disappeared: panoramio — Google shut Panoramio down in November 2016. pancontrol — Google removed panControl from the Maps API in 2017; there is no flag to set anymore. google.maps.KmlLayer — deprecated April 2026; replaced internally with a fetch + KML→GeoJSON renderer. The old https://www.google.com/jsapi loader — retired by Google in 2017; the modern loader requires a user-supplied API key. What’s not yet back. Marker clustering, directions/routing, geolocation marker, and marker drop/bounce animations are reachable from the rewrite but not yet wired up. See PARITY.md on GitHub for the full, categorised list (restored / new / missing-but-doable / deprecated-by-upstream / deliberately-dropped) plus a migration cheat-sheet. What was dropped on purpose. The sidebar widget (Classic Widgets is in long-term legacy mode), the saved-shortcodes admin library (it was the largest single security surface in the old plugin), and the 300+ marker PNG library (replaced with 13 modern SVGs plus a legacy-filename alias map) — see PARITY.md for the rationale on each. Contributors Current maintainer Norbert Preining Original author of the upstream “Comprehensive Google Map Plugin” (2011–2014) Alexander Zagniotov — thanks for the original work, released under GPL. Additional contributors Honza Rameš