Geocoding question

[Ben Hopkins]

We (Tribune Technology) use a javascript app to maintain geocode-type tags for stories on the web sites.  It used to be that "Kennedy Center" would pop a pin at the location of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC. 

All of a sudden, "Kennedy Center" would get a Kennedy Center in Pontiac, MI.  "John F Kennedy Center" sends me to Miami, FL.  "John F Kennedy Center, Washington DC" is 'undefined'.

maps.google.com goes straight to the one in DC when you put "Kennedy Center" in its search form.

What's up with this?  Can it be fixed?

[Alan Pearce]

I have seen the same thing. A better approach would be to store the
lat/lng of the location so you don't have to geocode it every time.

[Ben Hopkins]

The thing is that the reporter puts "Kennedy Center" into the geocode tag, and he doesn't know lat/lng.

[Rossko]

> The thing is that the reporter puts "Kennedy Center" into the geocode tag,
> and he doesn't know lat/lng.

Given that there is more than one "Kennedy Center" in the whole world,
can you give any further clues for the geocoder? Note that the
geocoder is for converting addresses to lat/longs, it's not so good
with institutions or businesses (see the Places API for that).
Bear in mind the geocoder can and does return multiple results - how
would you check which one was the 'intended' one? How would a live
person solve this puzzle?

maps.google.com uses more resources than just the geocoder so I
wouldn't expect comparable results. It was just pot luck you happened
to get the apparently right guess before - if the geocoder has been
updated to know more "Kennedy Center" places it'll be in a bigger
quandary than it was before.

An alternative approach might be to present the reporter with a map
with "click to show where you mean", after all they know better than
Google.