Avoiding Google Maps geocode limit?

Like everybody else, I could give you an answer with code, but I don't think somebody has explained to you that you are doing something that is fundamentally wrong.

Why are you hitting this error? Because you are calling geocode every time somebody views your page and you are not caching your results anywhere in the db!

The reason that limit exists is to prevent abuse from Google's resources (whether it is willingly or unwillingly) - which is exactly what you are doing :)

Although google's geocode is fast, if everybody used it like this, it would take their servers down. The reason why Google Fusion Tables exist is to do a lot of the heavy server side lifting for you. The geocoding and tile caching is done on their servers. If you do not want to use that, then you should cache them on your server.

If still, 2500 request a day is too little, then you have to look at Google Maps Premier (paid) license that gives you 100,000 geocoding requests per day for something around 10k a year (that is a lot - with server side caching you should not be reaching this limit unless you are some huge site or are doing heavy data processing). Without server side caching and using your current approach, you would only be able to do 800 pageviews a day!

Once you realize that other providers charge per geocode, you'll understand that you should cache the results in the db. With this approach it would cost you about 10 US cents per page view!

Your question is, can you work around the throttle limit that Google gives you? Sure. Just make a request from different ip addresses. Heck, you could proxy the calls through amazon elastic ips and would always have a new fresh 2500 allotted calls. But of course, besides being illegal (you are effectively circumventing the restriction given to you by the Google Maps terms of service), you would be doing a hack to cover the inherent design flaw you have in your system.

So what is the right way for that use-case? Before you call the google geocode api, send it to your server and query if it is in your cache. If it is not, call the geocode, store it in your cache and return the result.

There are other approaches, but this should get you started in the right direction.

Update: From your comments below, it said you are using PHP, so here is a code sample on how to do it correctly (recommendation from the Google team itself) https://developers.google.com/maps/articles/phpsqlsearch_v3


I think Sasa is right, on both counts.

In terms of sending all your addresses at once, one option is to send the requests at intervals. In the past when using JavaScript I have opted to delay requests by 0.25 (seems to work!) seconds using the 

setTimeout( [FUNCTION CALL] , 250 )

method.

In .NET i have opted for:

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(250);

Seems to work.

EDIT: Cant really test it, but this should/might work!

Javascript example. The addressArray holds strings that are addresses...

for (var i = 0; i < addressArray.length; i++0 
{

setTimeout('googleGeocodingFunction(' + addressArray[i] + ')' , 250);

}

EDIT:

for (var i = 0; i < address.length; i++) {
    function(i) {
        setTimeout(geocoder.geocode({ 'address': address[i] }, function(results, status) {
            if (status == google.maps.GeocoderStatus.OK) {
                places[i] = results[0].geometry.location;

                var marker = new google.maps.Marker({ position: places[i], map: map });
                markers.push(marker);
                mc.addMarker(marker);
                google.maps.event.addListener(marker, 'click', function() {
                    if (!infowindow) {
                        infowindow = new google.maps.InfoWindow();
                    }

                    // Setting the content of the InfoWindow
                    infowindow.setContent(popup_content[i]);

                    // Tying the InfoWindow to the marker 
                    infowindow.open(map, marker);
                });

                // Extending the bounds object with all coordinates 
                bounds.extend(places[i]);

                // Adjusting the map to new bounding box 
                map.fitBounds(bounds)
            } else {
                alert("Geocode was not successful for the following reason: " + status);
            }
        }), 250);// End of setTimeOut Function - 250 being a quarter of a second. 
    } 
}

It sounds like you are hitting the simultaneous request limit imposed by Google (though I cannot find a reference to what the limit actually is). You will need to space your requests out so that you do not send 125 requests all at once. Note that there is also a 2500 geocode request per day limit.

Consult the Google Geocoding Strategies document for more information.

Update: As an added solution inspired thanks to a post by Mapperz, you could think about creating a new Google Fusion Table, storing your address and any related data in the table, and geocoding the table through their web interface. There is a limit to the number of geocode requests a Fusion Table will make, however the limit is quite large. Once you reach the limit, you will need to re-submit the geocode request, and Fusion Tables will pick up where it left off. Bonus to this approach is a huge speed improvement, as you will only need to geocode ONCE, where with your current solution you will need to geocode on every load, quickly reaching daily limits.

Tags:

Google Maps

Geocoding

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