I was trying to get directions to a couple of businesses in town (Santa Barbara, California) using MagicEarth and so far everything I’ve looked for has been a total disaster. I search for the name of a business that has been here for years and I get search results hundreds of miles away. As far as I can tell, the search index is extremely sparsely populated or something like that. Is it better in Europe perhaps or what does everyone use?
Works fine for me in France.
AFAIK, MagicEarth relies on openstreemap.
It could be interesting to try the same search on their web site : if it’s ok it’s a MagicEarth problem, otherwise it should be an OSM database inconsistency (you can help to improve 
).
I just checked the openstreetmap site. I can’t get openstreetmap nominatim to return anything for a business name. The site also uses GeoNames and that has very spotty coverage. Bummer.
Openstreetmap does not have everything and is lacking especially in the research of business points of interest, and this I believe, because it is done with the contributions of all of us.
Of course, on this google instead has no competition, also because it has the resources (money) to better manage the maps and propose a product that obviously has no worthy rivals.
Yes I confirm that Magic Earth (and Osmand) isn’t the best when you search for a location.
But if you have a bit of luck or the postal address, for me in France it’s perfect.