Places Autocomplete has stopped working for UK Postcodes (v3.5 and v3.6)

[eski009]

Up until the last few days, entering a UK postcode in to the places autocomplete would return the correct lat/lng.

This included full postcodes (NW3 4BB) and partial postcodes (NW3).

This no longer works and simply returns the centre point of the city that postcode is inside.

i.e. a London postcode now returns the lat/lng for Westminster.

You can try this out for yourself at a little test site I set up - http://www.parkatmyhouse.com/uk/test/google-maps/

Is this a bug at Google's end or a change of policy?

[eski009]

Anyone from the Google Maps team able to help?

On Sep 22, 6:10 pm, eski009 <eski...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Up until the last few days, entering a UK postcode in to the places
> autocomplete would return the correct lat/lng.
> This included full postcodes (NW3 4BB) and partial postcodes (NW3).
>
> This no longer works and simply returns the centre point of the city that
> postcode is inside.
> i.e. a London postcode now returns the lat/lng for Westminster.
>

> You can try this out for yourself at a little test site I set up -http://www.parkatmyhouse.com/uk/test/google-maps/

[eski009]

Anyone from Google able to help with this one?

[Chris Broadfoot]

Hi,

Could you give an example using the Autocomplete Web Service? What is the correct lat/lng? Also, is the Geocoding API giving the correct result?

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/places/autocomplete.html

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/

I'm not aware of any general issue with UK post codes, but data is updated continually so this may be a new error in our data.

Thanks

Chris

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On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:26 AM, eski009 <esk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Anyone from Google able to help with this one?

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[eski009]

Hi Chris,

Here is an example for the postcode NW3:

Places autocomplete: 51.5001524,-0.1262361999999939

Gecoding API: 51.55583020, -0.17394880 (http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?sensor=false&address=nw3)

Google Maps coordinates: 51.555728,-0.174236 (approx) - http://g.co/maps/9nx65

You'll see that Google Maps and Geocoding API returrn the same location but the new places autocomplete javascrpt API doesn't.

In fact, all London postal codes return the centre of London. The same applies for all other city postcodes.

This has been returning the correct results for the last few months so something has been changed in the last week.

Thanks,

Anthony

[Rossko]

> Here is an example for the postcode NW3:

NW3 is not a postcode, it's a fragment only, could be relevant.

[eski009]

Both NW3 (a partial postcode) and NW3 6BN (a full postcode) used to return the correct location using places autocomplete.

Neither work now

[eski009]

Any help?

[Alen Mujezinovic]

Same here.

EC2A 3QN returns

    > place.geometry.location.lat()

    51.5001524

    > place.geometry.location.lng()

    -0.12623619999999391

Instead of the real coordinates of 54 Rivington Street

    > place.geometry.location.lat()

    51.5260621

    > place.geometry.location.lng()

    -0.08115850000001501

Same behaviour on any London postcode.