Waze's search algorithm is designed to show you the most relevant results for your search. When you insert a query on Waze, we will identify potential locations and show you results based on the following factors, in this order of importance:
- Your distance from the identified location
- The extent to which the identified location matches your search query
- The identified location's prominence and popularity
If your query matches an advertisement or other paid content, it will be presented at the top of the search results and clearly labelled as an ad.
Once you have chosen your destination, Waze aims to provide you with alternative routes to your chosen destination. When ranking the suggested routes to your destination we will take under consideration the following factors, in this order of importance:
- Road/area restrictions (e.g. restrictions based on time, vehicle type, etc.)
- User preferences (e.g. to avoid toll roads)
- Road types (e.g. toll, private, etc.)
- Estimated time of arrival ('ETA')
- Route length and number of road segments
Based on these factors, we will show you a number of suggested routes. The first route will always be the one we think is the optimal route. The other suggested routes are ranked based on the above-mentioned factors, as well as your preferred routes (i.e. a route that you tend to take) and the natural routes (i.e. a route that you would expect to get) to the destination. All routes are also labelled to allow you to better understand why each route is presented.
Business data in Waze search results
Waze may show you information about a business or venue when you search for it, such as contact information, hours of operation and prices. This is data provided by Waze users, Google and other partners.
We work with different partners to source relevant information about businesses that users can navigate to in Waze. We receive data from these partners and try to update this data regularly. While the sources used vary across categories, we aim to display the most accurate and up-to-date information possible. In addition, our community of editors also suggest edits to keep the data as fresh as possible.
In search results and venue pages, Waze tries to display the most relevant data for each user. For example, displaying the petrol price associated with the user’s preferred fuel marked in settings. If the user does not have this setting marked, we show the cheapest petrol prices available. Sometimes, additional prices and prices for additional services may be indicated inside of the venue page.
Waze does not verify third-party data and therefore cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information and is not responsible for any out-of-date or inaccurate data.