9 replies to this topic

[penumbra123]

Hi All,

I am hoping you can help me with ArcGIS geocoding. I have about 1200 addresses that I need to geocode, and I have about 360 that cannot be matched. I've increased the misspelling tolerance and lowered the match requirements to no avail.

I am using the detail_street information from the ESRI DVDs that came with my software (ArcGIS 9.2).

In trying to figure out why some addresses were unmatchable, I've randomly picked some and found out the address were locatable via google/yahoo maps, but just not with ArcGIS. Is it because the detail_street or address locator need to be updated? Or is there another reason why the addresses aren't being mapped even though they are correct? For some of the unmatchable, we are talking about 0% matches.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thank You,

Frank

[Hans van der Maarel]

Geocoding remains a bit of an iffy process. Something as simple as a misspelling like 'Ave' instead of 'Av' can cause it to not find an address, and in many other cases it's perfectly okay with that.

It may be worth taking the 300-or-so addresses that the Arc geocoder couldn't find and run them through another geocoding service. I recently worked with the Yahoo one and that seemed pretty good.

[Mike Boruta]

I agree with Hans. Try running those 360 addresses through www.batchgeocode.com and see what happens. It works well and only takes a few seconds.

[penumbra123]

Geocoding remains a bit of an iffy process. Something as simple as a misspelling like 'Ave' instead of 'Av' can cause it to not find an address, and in many other cases it's perfectly okay with that.

It may be worth taking the 300-or-so addresses that the Arc geocoder couldn't find and run them through another geocoding service. I recently worked with the Yahoo one and that seemed pretty good.

Hi everyone,

Thank You Hans and borga for the suggestions. I did run the missing addresses through batchgeocode, and sure enough, all but 3 were mapped!

My next question is, how do I export the geocode data with Lon and Lat information into a format ArcGIS understands? I read that you can only add coordinate data in a .dbf or .txt file, so I copy/pasting the geocode result into excel, and then saved as a tab delimited txt file, but ArcGIS gives me an error message (A selected item could not be added to the map. General function failure). What did I do wrong?

Thanks!!

Frank

[Geographic Techniques]

Geocoding remains a bit of an iffy process. Something as simple as a misspelling like 'Ave' instead of 'Av' can cause it to not find an address, and in many other cases it's perfectly okay with that.

It may be worth taking the 300-or-so addresses that the Arc geocoder couldn't find and run them through another geocoding service. I recently worked with the Yahoo one and that seemed pretty good.

Hi everyone,

Thank You Hans and borga for the suggestions. I did run the missing addresses through batchgeocode, and sure enough, all but 3 were mapped!

My next question is, how do I export the geocode data with Lon and Lat information into a format ArcGIS understands? I read that you can only add coordinate data in a .dbf or .txt file, so I copy/pasting the geocode result into excel, and then saved as a tab delimited txt file, but ArcGIS gives me an error message (A selected item could not be added to the map. General function failure). What did I do wrong?

Thanks!!

Frank

Frank,

Becareful of those geocodes. Often, an app like batchgeocode will locate to the ZIP centroid if it can't geocode to street level (i.e., not placed along the road segement). You may want to double check to see how they look.

Also, you might have better luck importing your data to ArcGIS if you save to a CSV from Excel.

Good luck!

[Hans van der Maarel]

Don't know about Batchgeocode.com but Yahoo adds an attribute which contains some accuracy information (address / street / zip / city) which will allow you to decide whether or not the results are useful enough.

[Mike Boruta]

Frank - Since you are running 9.2 trying saving the excel data in its default format (.xls). In Arcmap, use: Tools, Add XY Data.

Also, try closing excel before you add the data into arc.

[penumbra123]

Frank - Since you are running 9.2 trying saving the excel data in its default format (.xls). In Arcmap, use: Tools, Add XY Data.

Also, try closing excel before you add the data into arc.

Borga,

Thanks! that method worked for me.

Frank

[penumbra123]

Geocoding remains a bit of an iffy process. Something as simple as a misspelling like 'Ave' instead of 'Av' can cause it to not find an address, and in many other cases it's perfectly okay with that.

It may be worth taking the 300-or-so addresses that the Arc geocoder couldn't find and run them through another geocoding service. I recently worked with the Yahoo one and that seemed pretty good.

Hi everyone,

Thank You Hans and borga for the suggestions. I did run the missing addresses through batchgeocode, and sure enough, all but 3 were mapped!

My next question is, how do I export the geocode data with Lon and Lat information into a format ArcGIS understands? I read that you can only add coordinate data in a .dbf or .txt file, so I copy/pasting the geocode result into excel, and then saved as a tab delimited txt file, but ArcGIS gives me an error message (A selected item could not be added to the map. General function failure). What did I do wrong?

Thanks!!

Frank

Frank,

Becareful of those geocodes. Often, an app like batchgeocode will locate to the ZIP centroid if it can't geocode to street level (i.e., not placed along the road segement). You may want to double check to see how they look.

Also, you might have better luck importing your data to ArcGIS if you save to a CSV from Excel.

Good luck!

Geographics Techniques,

Thank You for the forewarning! I will double check to see if some of the unmatchable address were located to Zip centroids.

Frank

[penumbra123]

I agree with Hans. Try running those 360 addresses through www.batchgeocode.com and see what happens. It works well and only takes a few seconds.

Hi Borga,

When I tried to "add layer" the batchgeocode addresses (with XY coordinates) I get the Geographic Coordinate Systems Warning because it appears the batchgeocode address are in GCS_North American_1983 and the base map in something else (I extracted the base map from ESRI's DVDs)

While I can see that the coordinates looked fine when I ignore the warning message, the problem arises when I tried to "spatial join" the batchgeocode data and the base map. ArcGIS told me the batchgeocode addresses need to have the projections defined, but I am clueless on what to do next? It appears the join functions aren't working because of the different coordinate systems within my map. How do I make the systems uniform?

Thank You!!!

Frank