Here are my findings. In summary, despite their massive investments, the large OTA's do a terrible job.
This is not exhaustive, many listing sites are very similarly bad.
i mention going back to the server because it is important for responsiveness for large numbers of properties. When you start having 50,000+ properties performance matters.
Any pointers to a listing site which does a good job?
Which of the following are the worst? TripAdvisor?
Groupaccommodation and Streeteasy use Leaflet and Mapbox, with Groupaccommodation also using Leaflet Markercluster for clustering. I quite like them, and they certainly perform for large numbers of markers.
The others use Google Maps, I think.
airbnb
- -Map only shows the 18 shown on the page
-Zoom/pan map changes markers and the page
-Mouse over property on page highlights the marker
clicking marker brings up small window which shows the set of pictures. clicking marker seems to go back to server. Scrolling through pictures goes back to the server for each picture.Clicking on this window brings up the full property listing.
-Hover over marker no effect
- -Just a map, no link with a page
-Markers update with pan/zoom
-Mouseover brings up a line of text eg. 'chatueax from 600 euros per night, click for details' or 'click to display 5 properties' for cluster markers.
-Clicking brings up small window with one picture and description. This goes back to server. Clicking this window brings up full property listing.
-Each small window remains, so you may end up with lots of small windows. Small windows have close icon.
-Small window has option to save to favourites, or full details.
- -Map shows all properties, page shows subset
-Pan/zoom does not change page
-Hover over individual marker shows location description e.g.'mas de la serra eastern Spain'
-Hover over cluster shows bounding polygon for cluster
-Hover/pan/zoom does not seem to go back to server
-Clicking cluster zooms into that cluster and shows markers. It seems to go back to server for this, don;t know why.
-Clicking individual marker bring up small window with one picture, name, country, sleeps, bedrooms. Seems to go to server the first time but not second time. Very slight pause for picture on first time, immediate second time.
-Clicking on small window brings up full property details.
-Small window has close icon. Also only one small window at a time. Pan/zoom keeps the window open, but clicking somewhere closes it.
- -Map shows markers only for properties on page
-Pan/zoom of map updates page
-Nothing happens on hover over marker
-No marker clustering
-Clicking marker brings up small window with picture and some details. Goes to server for this. Can scroll pictures - seems like the second picture goes back to server, but then subsequent pictures do not. Second pictures retrieves all remaining pictures?
-Markers clicked shown in slightly different colour. Hover over small window makes markers go orange,
-Clicking small window bring up full details.
-Hover over property on page displays marker in orange.
- -Map shows all properties, no clustering, marker is small green circle. But a few properties have larger icon marker, don't know how they are distinguished.
-Mouseover marker shows small window with brief description and reviews summary.
-Pan/zoom map does not update markers or property page.
-Hovering over property on property page brings up small window on map
-Property page is actually a long scrolling list, without paging.
-Filtering on e.g bedrooms goes back to server and pause before map markers are updated. Same with price.
- -Map and list are a bit separate, overlayed.
-Map shows all markers, with different style for available or not. small markers (circles). Clustering.
-Hover over marker brings up very small window with brief description. Goes to server every time.
-Clicking on marker brings up bigger small window with scrollable pictures. Once this window is open, scrolling pictures does not go back to server.
-Any selection of filters (e.g. price) goes back to server.
- -It takes long time before markers first appear.
-Pan/zoom goes back to server.
-Seems completely bonkers. Clicking on Switzerland brings up list of properties in Dubai.
Streeteasy.com
- -Nice