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Understanding Geocoded Results

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IMPORTANT: MapPoint Web Service was retired on November 18, 2011. Please see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd877180.aspx for a list of current Bing Maps APIs.

The results returned by the geocoder depend on the quality of the data being processed. Empty address fields and errors in street and city names, among other things, affect geocoding results. For the geocoder to determine the map data source to use for geocoding, your data source must have a country/region column with a valid country/region code for each entity. (The valid country/region code for addresses in Puerto Rico is PR.) If country/region is omitted, the geocoder uses the MapPoint.World data source by default and cannot return street-level geocodes.

The process the geocoder uses when working through the address fields of a location data source is called geocoding up the hierarchy. The geocoder first attempts to match the complete street address, which includes the street number. If no match is found, the geocoder next attempts to find a match for the street name, which is the next level up in the hierarchy. The postal code is tried next, followed by the city name.

The geocoder adds three fields to a data source: MatchedAddress, MatchCode, and MatchedMethod. MatchedAddress contains the address that was matched. And together MatchCode and MatchedMethod describe the quality of the results returned for each entity. MatchCode indicates how well the geocoder matched the address and MatchedMethod shows the level in the address at which the geocoder either made the match or determined that the results were ambiguous. Therefore, an entity with a match code of Good and a matched method of Address has the most precise geocoding.

The geocoder returns a match code and a matched method that are displayed as text in the CSS. These text values have corresponding numeric equivalents that you can use with the Filter property for the Find or FindNearby methods.

The geocoder returns the following values for match code:

  • Good or 0 —The geocoder found a single match.

  • Imprecise or 2 —The geocoder was unable to match all of the information and had to geocode up the hierarchy to find a less precise result. For example, the geocoder returns a match code of Imprecise if it cannot match the address fields for the entity and returns a match at the postal code level.

  • Ambiguous or 3 —The geocoder returned more than one possible match. For example, the street address for the entity is 128 Main St. and the geocoder returns matches for 128 North Main St. and 128 South Main St. because there is no way to determine which is sought. By default, the geocoder accepts the first match in the list and stores the associated latitude and longitude coordinates. If you do not want the upload process to accept the first result, select the Reject ambiguous matches check box on the Create a Data Source page or the Replace a Data Source page. If you select this check box, no results are accepted and you can use the Edit Entity ID page to choose the correct match manually.

  • Bad or 1 —The geocoder was unable to return a result.

The geocoder returns the following values for the matched method:

  • Address or 0 —The geocoder found a match for the full address, including street number.

  • Street or 1 —The geocoder found a match for the street name. The point returned by the geocoder is one end of the street.

  • PostCode or 2 —The geocoder matched the postal code and returned latitude and longitude coordinates for the postal code centroid. (A centroid is the center of a body's mass. When the term centroid is applied to a geopolitical area, such as a postal code area or city, the centroid is the center of the population mass of that area rather than the geographic center. Therefore, the centroid for a postal code can be some distance from its geographic center.)

  • City or 3 —The geocoder matched the city and returned latitude and longitude coordinates for the city centroid.

  • Subdivision or 4 —The geocoder matched the state, province, or other subdivision.

  • CountryRegion or 5 —The geocoder matched the country/region.

  • Manual or 6 —The geocoder returned multiple results and the correct match was chosen manually. If you download a data source after using the Edit Entity ID page to position entities on a map, the matched method for those entities is Manual or 6 and the corresponding match code is Good or 0 .

See Also

Concepts

Requirements for Location Data Sources
Requirements for Polygon Data Sources
Uploading a Data Source Using the CSS
What is Geocoding?