This should probably hit home. Justin O’beirne:
For months, I’ve been trying to figure out why Google Maps’s city labels seem so much more readable than the labels on other mapping sites.
To me, Google’s labels seem to “pop” much more than the other sites’ labels. Major cities also seem to stand out much more. And whenever you’re quickly scanning the maps, the label you’re searching for seems to stand out just a little sooner on Google’s maps.
What follows is a terrific rundown of the careful visual enhancements the Google Maps team has put forth in their UI. Highly recommended.