New Google Geocoding Web Service | Hacker News Reader

New Google Geocoding Web Service

googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com

47 pointsdrp15 comments

I imagine this to be a fairly significant caveat, though perhaps that's more theory than practice. Am I wrong? :

"Note however that it is a requirement of the Maps API Terms of Service that you use the Geocoding Web Service in conjunction with a Google map. This means that when it comes time to use cached geocoder results in an application, the application must display the results or any data derived from them on a map generated using one of the Google Maps APIs or Google Earth API."

"2,500 requests may be sent to the Geocoding Web Service per day from a single IP address" - I don't remember this restriction from the previous version of the API. Has this changed, or did I just miss a T&C somewhere?

The thing to keep in mind about this is that the limit applies to end users, not developers, since the requests will be coming directly from the users' browsers.

It all depends how you develop your map, of course, but this is a powerful incentive not to proxy the requests through your own server. And if you need to cache them or whatever, have the user's computer make the geocode request on your behalf, and then send it to the server for storage.

Off-course that depends on your method of usage. If you have a large DB of geo-based, but not geocoded, content, the only way to show relevant local items to the user is to geocode them all first. Then this daily limit is relevant.

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/faq.html#geocoder%5Flimit

"If more than 15,000 geocode requests in a 24 hour period are received from a single IP address, or geocode requests are submitted from a single IP address at too fast a rate..."

They definitely had a limit, but I think it was a bit higher (5K or 10K).

I remember paying $20k for a geocoder not 10 years ago ... how times have changed!

If I go to http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=sydney&#... with Chrome I don't get a JSON format:

OK locality political Sydney NSW, Australia Sydney Sydney locality political New South Wales NSW administrative_area_level_1 political Australia AU country political -33.8671390 151.2071140 APPROXIMATE -33.8764033 151.1911066 -33.8578737 151.2231214 -33.8797030 151.1970330 -33.8559920 151.2229770

I'm pretty sure you are calling the xml format there. Use View Source!

View source: XML.

Thank you all for having mercy and not downvoting me =P...

I wish they would add a geoip lookup method.

http://ip2nation.com/

how is this better than yahoo's offering? with their woeid and whatnot? as mileszs points out, the tos arent so favorable...

Did it always do regions before? It was able to give me at least a rough bounds for "inner sunset san francisco":

http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=inner%20...

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