Addresses with 'N' & 'W' Street Numbers are not Located Properly

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Orion

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Mar 20, 2013, 11:06:46 AM3/20/13
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Hello,

I have seen many issues with POI locations for addresses in Wisconsin that use the 'N' and 'W' in their street numbering system.

For example, Rke Sales (W220N7050 Town Line Rd , Menomonee Falls, WI 53051) is currently showing up in a completely wrong location in Menomonee Falls, WI.  It shows up on Shady Lane near West Good Hope Road.

It is also interesting to note that a POI for 'Ally's Bistro' also shows up in the exact same, wrong, location.  However, the Ally's Bistro POI, here, is not editable at that location. When searched for in Google Maps, it shows up in a different location.



It seems that Google Maps does not know how to interpret these types of addresses well.

For example, if one searches the Rke Sales address as such:

W220N7050 Town Line Rd, Menomonee Falls, WI 53051 ... an 'unclear' mapmarker is returned.

However if one was to search the same address but with a space in the street number:

W220 N7050 Town Line Rd, Menomonee Falls, WI 53051 ... a more specific marker is shown, yet it is still in an incorrect location.

I ran into an issue lately with an SAB client (not listed above) where their listing was verified by PIN (and address was hidden) but the listing disappeared after a Google rep called the company to confirm their info.

After contacting tech support, Google told me that the "The address you have provided in your account is in violation of our quality guidelines." ... it was then that I realized that using the proper address (with no spaces in the N.....W..... system, according to USPS standards) created an 'unclear' marker location... and that using the inproper address (with a space between the N and the W in the street number) produced a clear map maker... however... both of the locations were actually very wrong.

I had to move the marker to their proper residential home location... which then revealed that Rke Sales and the 'old' Ally's Bistro label were camped right outside their home.

Is there any hope that Google will start to interpret addresses with N...W... in them correctly anytime soon?  How do we escalate this broad issue to tech support?

Thanks.

Flash

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Mar 20, 2013, 10:45:48 PM3/20/13
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According to the official GIS for the county, W220N7050 Town Line Rd does not exist. 

USPS.com also says there is no such address.

When you check property by property on the county GIS, that property does not use the coordinate system, but rather it's address is officially 7050 North Town Line Road, Lannon, WI

USPS likes that address.  http://goo.gl/H7bTJ

And that address is recognized just fine by Maps and Map Maker.  http://goo.gl/maps/6emkg

There is no issue to escalate; the problem was that you were trying to look up a non-existent address.

Orion

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Mar 21, 2013, 5:57:51 PM3/21/13
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Hi Flash,

Thanks for the info.  Is there a public URL to look at the county GIS data online?

Perhaps that was a bad example above, as I didn't examine what USPS.com said for that particular case.

The reason I brought this issue up was because a different listing of a client of mine, that was verified by PIN, got deleted by a Google rep, even though the SAB address was hidden in the Google Places dashboard.... then Google support replied to me saying "The address you have provided in your account is in violation of our quality guidelines."

The address that I used was this:

Dave's Appliacne Service
W172N7271 Shady Lane, Menomonee Falls WI 53051

That is the address that shows up as proper in USPS.com, but Google Maps sees it as a vague location.  Also, when I tried to search (with a space): W172 N7271 Shady Lane, Menomonee Falls WI 53051 ... Google provides a pin pointed location, but it is still way off.

Any input for this particular case?

Thanks for you help.

Flash

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Mar 21, 2013, 6:37:24 PM3/21/13
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The GIS can be found easily enough by going to the county website at http://www.waukeshacounty.gov and clicking on the GIS link.

USPS is just something to help, it isn't proof at all as physical addresses rather than postal addresses are used in Map Maker.

Google can't support every address formatting around the world.  Wisconsin uses both the coordinate system and the "normal" system of street number and street name (the most used standard in the world), and they recognize both for each pieced of property.  If you look up your clients property you will find the official address is as you state, but if you type "7271 Shady Ln" into the address search on the GIS it will take you right to you client's property.  Since they use both, I can understand why Google wishes to stay with the world standard format.

And when you look at it, all the W172 refers to is... Shady Lane.  It's sort of like saying Shady Lane 7271 Shady Lane.  No wonder Wisconsin has started supporting regular addresses!

Since the government responsible for addressing recognizes the addressing Google wants you to use, I think there really is much that needs to be done here.

Orion

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Mar 21, 2013, 8:32:21 PM3/21/13
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Awesome info.  Thanks for the details!

So, a bit off topic but somewhat related... and just to expand the discussion a little for those who may be interested... is the conflict that this potentially creates in the realm of online business NAP (name/address/phone number) citations.

Google wants addresses in certain formats in certain instances... as seen by the 'violation' warning my client received for entering a 'wrong' address... and also as seen by Google Maps not always recognizing the coordinate style addresses.

The theory, from 'pros' in the SEO world, is that your business NAP citations online should all be uniform, thus showing search engines a more unified representation of a business... which can help to raise the trust level of the business in the eyes of the search engine algorithms.

If in every day life in Wisconsin, people use and reference the coordinate system, and all the IYP (internet yellow page) websites are full of NAP citations using the coordinate system for a particular business... yet Google wants/needs/requires the NAP to be entered in the 'normal' system ... a conflict of addresses may arise when comparing a businesses IYP listings with Google's G+ Local, Google Maps, and Google Map Maker addresses.


(BTW, in your last sentence... did you mean 'there really is much' or 'there really is not much' ... that needs to be done here?)

Flash

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Mar 21, 2013, 9:00:22 PM3/21/13
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Ops, meant "really isn't too much to do".

Yeah, from a SEO NAP point of view it sucks.  But then so do all American addresses, since they put the suite number in a very illogical place.

Orion

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Mar 21, 2013, 9:01:12 PM3/21/13
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The sad thing is... that Google Maps also does not pull up the proper location for "7271 Shady Lane, Menomonee Falls, WI" :(

The proper location is at the south end of the street near the NW corner of W Good Hope Rd and Shady Lane.

Russ


On Thursday, March 21, 2013 6:37:24 PM UTC-4, Flash wrote:

... if you type "7271 Shady Ln" into the address search on the GIS it will take you right to you client's property.  

Flash

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Mar 21, 2013, 11:01:52 PM3/21/13
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If Maps doesn't know where an address is, it has to make an educated guess based the addresses it does know.  If there aren't many data points, it is going to be pretty approximate.  Additionally, any data points that are in the wrong spots will lessen the accuracy.  Placing your clients listing in the right spot will increase the accuracy for future mappers.

Orion

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Mar 22, 2013, 2:02:10 PM3/22/13
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Thanks Flash,

That's good to know.  If I find other addresses in the completely wrong location due to the coordinate system, and I do not know exactly where they do belong (but for sure belong on a different street altogether), what is the best way to go about moving/correcting them?

Should I simply report the POI to be in the wrong location and let Google support handle it?

Thanks,

Russ


On Thursday, March 21, 2013 11:01:52 PM UTC-4, Flash wrote:

... any data points that are in the wrong spots will lessen the accuracy.

Flash

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Mar 22, 2013, 3:26:14 PM3/22/13
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It depends, kind of.

If you find them in Maps. you need to then check Map Maker.  You're looking to see if there is actually an incorrectly located POI, including Address POIs (POIs with the Address category that mark addresses, and nothing else).  If there isn't one, then it was just a guess by the system as to location in response to your query, and the only way to improve it is actually add an Address POI yourself.  If there is a POI and it is wrongly located, then you could re-locate it.

So there are two different things to do, but both would be done by you; which is why I said "kind of".  Map Maker is a self serve tool.  You could try to report an issue via Maps, but since someone has already said "This is located here" and you are saying "I have no idea where it is located"; I don't know if anything would be done.

PS. Unfortunately there an issue right now where the Address POIs are not showing in searches; you have to use a workaround of creating a new one and seeing if duplicates are detected.  But they have prioritized fixing this, so soon that should not be an issue.
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