CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

We're using the geocoding functionality of Civi with our client sites. They have anywhere from 1k to 170k contacts. We would like to use the geocoding functionality but have learned that Google limits the total numbers being geocoded to "prevent abuse" in one go.

Can anyone shed light on any of the following questions:

• Does the Address Geocoder job select addresses without long and lat?
• Does it have logic to throttle the attempts to avoid hitting the limits?
• What does it do when it gets a number of rejects in a row? Does it stop?
• Is there anything built in to Civi to keep limits from being exceeded?
• Anyone know if it's the whole domain or the subdomain? Our users all access CiviCRM at the same domain but have different subdomains.

Here's an excerpt about Google limits (from here https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/): "Use of the Google Geocoding API is subject to a query limit of 2,500 geolocation requests per day. (User of Google Maps API for Business may perform up to 100,000 requests per day.) This limit is enforced to prevent abuse and/or repurposing of the Geocoding API, and this limit may be changed in the future without notice. Additionally, we enforce a request rate limit to prevent abuse of the service. If you exceed the 24-hour limit or otherwise abuse the service, the Geocoding API may stop working for you temporarily. If you continue to exceed this limit, your access to the Geocoding API may be blocked.

Note: the Geocoding API may only be used in conjunction with a Google map; geocoding results without displaying them on a map is prohibited. For complete details on allowed usage, consult the Maps API Terms of Service License Restrictions."

Thanks for the response, Stoob.

Also wondering if the geocoder knows to not keep looking at addresses that are PO Boxes, or if it starts with the same list every time it tries and doesn't know to ignore them. Seems like we need something parallel to the bounce type and resulting "hold" checkbox for emails so we could use the 2.5k request limit efficiently.

Thanks for your help anyway.

Yahoo shut the service down in 2011
http://developer.yahoo.com/maps/simple/
We are shutting down this service on September 13, 2011. We suggest using maps from our partner Nokia. Please visit developer.here.net for more information.

So- why is it still an option in 2013 in the code Donald?

I'm trying to geocode 100,000 contacts- and finding the documentation severely lacking.
As well as a method for not over burdening Google.
OpenMaps supposedly has no limits- but it isn't an option as a geocoding provider- only google and yahoo which is defunct.

and- does setting throttling to a figure higher than 1 help?