GeoNames Forum

Is there a daily limit on the number of reverse geocodes one IP address (ie: server) can perform in a day with the web services?

We currently use another service to geocode UK postcodes and I'm thinking of using a similar system whereby we find all the unique postal codes for the hotels listed on our site, use the WS to geocode them then cache the results in our database (assuming that's allowed under the licence).

The problem being, we'd need to geocode on average maybe 2 - 3000 entries per site initially into the cache and I don't want to get the server IPs banned for abusing the system. With the UK system it does one lookup every couple of seconds, then sleeps for 20 seconds every 200 and I was wondering if something like that would be acceptable for using the Geonames system?

Trev

Hi Trev

Is there a daily limit on the number of reverse geocodes one IP address (ie: server) can perform in a day with the web services?

No, there is currently no limit.

use the WS to geocode them then cache the results in our database (assuming that's allowed under the licence).

This is fine. The licence allows you to do everything you like.

The problem being, we'd need to geocode on average maybe 2 - 3000 entries per site initially into the cache and I don't want to get the server IPs banned for abusing the system. With the UK system it does one lookup every couple of seconds, then sleeps for 20 seconds every 200 and I was wondering if something like that would be acceptable for using the Geonames system?

This is perfectly acceptable.

Marc

Hi Marc,

My company would like to use your geocoder in place of the Yahoo! geocoder, because Yahoo! has a limit of 5,000 geocode requests per day. I can't find your terms of use, but from browsing the forum it seems like you have a pretty liberal usage policy.

Is there a page that describes your policies and/or terms of use? Specifically, what, if any, is the daily limit on the number of regular geocode requests per IP address?

Thanks in advance,
(and sorry if you have been asked this before!)

Daniel

Hi Daniel

At the moment there are no access limits for the geonames web services. This policy, however, has started to create some performance problems and we may be forced to implement some limitations.
This thread has more information : http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/posts/list/272.page

Today I have ordered a third server with twice as much RAM. This new server(s) will be reserved for users who help us share the server costs. A first table of the expected cost is here : http://forum.geonames.org/gforum/posts/list/258.page#1468

Cheers

Marc