17.02.23 - Free service capable of geocoding addresses even in some of the trickiest cases

Despite the general availability of databases providing associations between textual addresses and locations, in real-world applications the task of geocoding can be anything but trivial: input addresses can contain incorrect information (wrong zip code, non-existent street number, etc.), typos, misspellings and the like. For instance, think of addresses issued from free-form text fields or noted down during phone calls.

The State of Geneve has developed and hosts a free online service which is capable of geocoding addresses even in some of the trickiest cases. The service exposes three interfaces: an interactive search bar, a batch processor for CSV/XLS files, a web API.

...and no, there is no Machine Learning behind, just a powerful search engine (Meilisearch), a smart indexation strategy and a custom search algorithm including phonetic capabilities. And yes, the code will be open sourced soon: stay tuned!

#geocoding