'Pokémon Go' nest locations change again: How to help track the update
Pokémon Go's nest locations are on the move again! Are you one of the fearsome Pokémon hunters that will chart the course for all to follow because you like dropping waypoints on maps?
The Pokémon Go experts at the Silph Road have reported the eighth nest migration. The Global Nest Atlas developed by the Silph Research group, one of the best third-party Pokémon tracking tools on the web, is already processing reports on the best places to find the Pokémon you're looking for.
Editor's Note: Click here for information on the latest Pokémon Go nest migration.
Pokémon Go nest location changes: Migrations mean wiping the maps clean
There hasn't been a proper Pokémon tracker in Pokémon Go since the game was launched in July. Niantic has been developing variations of a tracker that measures the distance between player and Pokémon they are tracking, using a vague icon of up to three footprints. The system has always been a struggle to understand, and not very useful as a result.
Third-party tools for tracking Pokémon that scraped data from the Pokémon Go servers were immensely popular for a brief period after the game's release. Then developer Niantic forced those data tracker services to shut down.
Crowdsourced data aggregation tools like the Global Nest Atlas have become Pokémon Go players' next best alternative. But every time the nests migrate, all that data has to be rebuilt from scratch.
Pokémon Go nest location changes: How to report Pokémon sightings after migrations
You have to join the Silph Road community in order to contribute data to the Global Nest Atlas. Once you've signed in you can select the Pokémon species and nest you want to report. "Nests" in Pokémon Go are locations on the map where the same species of Pokémon is unusually plentiful.
There are three different kinds of nests. At a cluster spawn nest, many individual Pokémon of the same species appear simultaneously and on a predictable schedule. Frequent spawn area and frequent spawn point nests are more concerned with individual Pokémon spawns that take place within a predictable schedule and area.
The Pokémon Go community itself is the ultimate Pokémon tracker for nest location changes
Once reports on the Global Nest Atlas begin to be confirmed, the atlas becomes a very effective Pokémon hunting tool. If you know when and how many Pokémon are expected to spawn at a specific area, you can plan very efficient Pokémon safaris!
Niantic recently released a new "nearby" tool for Pokémon Go. It's supposed to serve as a Pokémon tracking tool. It does, barely, and isn't very fun to use. As always, third-party tools like the Global Nest Atlas are your best tools for tracking Pokémon in Pokémon Go, until and unless Niantic delivers a better system.
More Pokémon Go hacks, tips and tricks from Mic
If you're already charting a course through your local Pokémon nests, you may also want to check out Mic's Pokémon Go guides. Here's everything you need to know about finding the long-awaited Pokémon, Ditto, creating new PokéStops, how to maximize your chances of catching Pokémon, and the newest top attackers and defenders lists.
Dec. 29, 2016, 11:04 a.m.: This story has been updated.
