CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I just completed geocoding 26K contacts in a database using the batch geocoding script referenced here:

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Batch+Geocoding+Script

I'm generally a Google kind of guy, but i would say Yahoo Maps come out on top here.  With no real numbers to back it up, i found Yahoo:

- was approximately twice as fast
- wasn't limited for my level of use (Google shuts down after 15K queries)
- did a better job of handling messy data
- would fall back to a closest match if the exact address couldn't be found (vs. google which would just return a 602 error and no lat/long)
- (seemingly) had more streets on file

If you do want to go with Google, pay attention to this little issue here (http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-3582), and edit your script accordingly.  Also, if you're geocoding a lot of data, the wget/curl command line utilities will time out after a while.  Might not be a bad idea to add some output to the UpdateAddress.php script to keep the client entertained.

They where addresses in the US ?

Good question!  Yes, they were US addresses in the midwest.