🗺️ Contribute to OpenStreetMap in Just 15 Minutes

Welcome to this streamlined guide! This tutorial is designed to get you making meaningful contributions to OpenStreetMap (OSM) in a quarter of an hour.

Your objective: Add an official website tag to a local amenity or shop.

Why does this matter?

Once a location has a website tag, it acts as a gateway to other critical data. Most official sites contain:

📞 Phone numbers
⏰ opening_hours
📧 Email addresses
...and various other helpful tags.

Your edits will be synced across dozens of open-source services, benefiting users globally.

🛠️ Getting Started Checklist

Create a free OSM account and verify your email.
Download and install JOSM (~365 MB) for your OS.

Note: JOSM (Java OSM editor) is a high-powered application for querying and modifying OSM data. While browser-based editors exist, JOSM's plugin ecosystem makes this specific task significantly faster.

🚀 The Step-by-Step Process

1. Acquire OSM Data

First, you need to load the map data for your chosen area.

Action	Windows/Linux Shortcut	macOS Shortcut
Open Download Dialog	`Ctrl` + `Shift` + `↓`	`⌘` + `Shift` + `↓`
Undo Action	`Ctrl` + `z`	`⌘` + `z`

Instructions:

Define your Area of Interest (AOI). Pick a familiar spot no larger than a few city blocks.
Use ctrl + click-drag to pan and the scroll wheel to zoom.
Draw a bounding box around your AOI and click ⬇️ Download.

2. Filter the Noise

We only want to see shops and amenities that are currently missing a website.

Locate the Filter panel (right side).
Click the + icon to open the dialog.
Paste the following query into the search field:

name=* ((amenity=* "addr:housenumber"=*) | shop=*) -website=* -"contact:website"=*

Click Submit filter.
In the Filter panel, toggle the visibility: Check E, ~~uncheck H~~, and check I.

3. Install the Website Wizard

To automate the search process, we will use a specific plugin.

Open Preferences via F12 (or ⌘ + , on Mac).
Click the 🧩 puzzle piece icon (Plugins).
Select ⬇️ Download list.
Find 🌐 WebsiteWizard, check the box, and click OK.

4. Find and Add Official Websites

Now, let's fill in the blanks.

Click the 🌐 icon on the left to open the Website Wizard panel on the right.
Enter your city or neighborhood in the Search Prefix field.
Select a shop or amenity within your AOI.
Click Search. This opens DuckDuckGo with a pre-filled query: [Search Prefix] + [Place Name].
Identify the official website.

[!WARNING] CRITICAL: Do ~~NOT~~ use links to:

Social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)

Review platforms (Yelp, TripAdvisor)

Business aggregators

Copy the URL $\rightarrow$ Paste into the Website URL field $\rightarrow$ Click Save.

📤 Uploading Your Work

Once you've added the data, you must upload the "changeset" to the global server.

Press Ctrl + Shift + ↑ (or ⌘ + Shift + ↑ on Mac).
Comment: Add website to city and/or neighborhood shops and amenities
Data Source: Select survey from the dropdown.
Click Upload Changes.
A browser window will open; log in to your OSM account and click Authorize.

📈 Workflow Summary

🏁 Conclusion

Congratulations! You've officially improved the map for everyone. You've now seen the power of JOSM. You could scale this effort—for instance, one user successfully added 66 website tags to the Wallingford neighborhood in Seattle in a single session.

What's next? You can tweak your filter to find places that have a website but lack a phone number, then use the website to find and add the phone tag.

Mathematically, the impact of your work looks like this: $\text{Your Effort} \times \text{OSM Community} = \text{The World's Greatest Map}$

Keep contributing and feel proud of your impact! 🥳