ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap) is aging software. One of its biggest drawbacks is the difficulty in adding modern, high-resolution web basemaps (like Google Satellite or Google Hybrid) into a project.
Google Maps uses Web Mercator (EPSG:3857). If your ArcGIS data frame is in a different projection (e.g., UTM or State Plane), ArcGIS 10.8 will re-project on the fly, causing blurry text and misaligned vectors.
Solution: Set your data frame’s coordinate system to WGS 1984 Web Mercator (Auxiliary Sphere) before adding the Google layer. arcgoogle for arcgis 10.8
If you absolutely must see your data on a Google Maps background for client presentation:
That’s the true, practical story of ArcGoogle in 10.8 — nostalgic but dead, and how to move on without it. ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap) is aging software
Last verified: Works on ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.1. No custom scripts required for the recommended workarounds.
Rating: 7/10
For users still reliant on ArcGIS Desktop 10.8, ArcGoogle is an essential tool that fills a massive functionality gap. However, it is a workaround, not a native solution, and it comes with the typical instability of third-party plugins bridging two very different software environments.
ArcGIS 10.8 does not include Google basemaps by default—only Esri, OpenStreetMap, and Bing. To add Google layers: That’s the true, practical story of ArcGoogle in 10
KML To Layer tool (Conversion Tools).ArcGIS 10.8’s built-in geocoder (Esri World Geocoder) can be supplemented with Google’s Geocoding API:
import arcpy, requests
params = ‘address’: ‘1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View, CA’, ‘key’: ‘YOUR_API_KEY’
r = requests.get(‘https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json’, params=params)