Search Engine Tigers

If you have a website and you want to put mapping information on it so that people can find out your location, how do you do it? Well, if you get a snazzy GPS system for xmas you can go to your business and find out that way. But what if you don’t? Well there are plenty of ways to find your location on the web.

Google provides an api to allow you to query their database and get your location, as long as the address is found in their system. The data that they are using appears to be a few years old, so the chances are if your street is fairly new, you might not be found. On Google it’s a 2 step process to first register and get an API key for your website, then to actually send the query to their database through a url i.e.

http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=1600+Pennsylvania+Ave,+
Washington,+DC&output=xml&key=ABQIAAAA-xQrwlLORM9lqIAYOLDFB
RQxjlcwaanVZIaMa_7hO2Evpk0tvRTOn77yY6QyLPNQmDizgSUsXhpuqQ

The return for this query is in XML format, with the co-ordinates being displayed, should they be found. Should they not, then it’s time for option 2.

Yahoo skips the need to register, and just gives you a url to query, which returns data in the same format as the Google XML.

http://api.local.yahoo.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=YahooDemo&
street=1600+Pennsylvania%20Ave&city=Washington&state=DC

From my experience, the data in the Yahoo database is much more current than that in the Google database, but there are still instances where I’ve not been able to find an address in Yahoo, which then leads me to option 3. This is a site by InfoSports and displays a map of the US. You simply zoom in until you find your exact location, then click on the map. This then gives you the coordinates, and away you go.