GeoNames Forum

I am using the web service findNearbyPostalCodes from a browser.

I am searching 33575 with a radius of 70. I expect to find these zips 33983,
34239,34606,33770,33618 included in the response.

The url is:
http://ws.geonames.org/findNearbyPostalCodes?postalcode=33575&country=us&radius=70

Using http://www.melissadata.com/lookups/zipdistance.asp
Distance from 33575 (RUSKIN, FL) to 33983 (PUNTA GORDA, FL) is 55.5 miles.
Distance from 33575 (RUSKIN, FL) to 33983 (PUNTA GORDA, FL) is 55.5 miles.
Distance from 33575 (RUSKIN, FL) to 34239 (SARASOTA, FL) is 28.9 miles.
Distance from 33575 (RUSKIN, FL) to 34606 (SPRING HILL, FL) is 52.5 miles.
Distance from 33575 (RUSKIN, FL) to 33770 (LARGO, FL) is 26.2 miles.
Distance from 33575 (RUSKIN, FL) to 33618 (TAMPA, FL) is 24.3 miles.

Why are these zips 33983,34239,34606,33770,33618 not in the returned results of findNearbyPostalCodes?

the service returns 5 rows per default.

http://www.geonames.org/export/web-services.html#findNearbyPostalCodes

Marc

That improved the situation but did not solve it.

I specified maxRows=500. This is the max on the free service.

Now I get 3 of the 5. Still not getting 33983 and 34606.

The premium service lower 2 prices are very restrictive!
The findNearByPostalCodes with > maxRows of 500 use 3 credits per request and the lowest price tier has a limit of 2 credits per day. So I would have to jump to the 2nd price tier. This is also limiting to 10 credits a day.
I would have to go to the 3rd price tier and that is 120 Euros. Getting kind of costly.

Any suggestions on how i might be able to get all 5 zips without premium service?

well, the credit usage limit per day for the premium service is 1000 times higher. If this is not enough for you then it means you need a thousands of request per day and we cannot open the free service more as the load is already too high on the free servers. At the contrary we will probably have to reduce the credit limits on the fee servers further.

Marc

Perhaps I am not understanding the pricing!

The max credits per day or per hour seem to me to be way too low.

Under B) Best Price (99% availability) premium service, The 2nd price tier has a daily limit of 10. That is only 3 request of the Find nearby postal codes per day.

Is that true?

It is 10 000 not 10. I have changed the thousands separator from point to thin space. Hopefully this makes it easier to read for people with different background.

Best

Marc

Check out the findNearbyPostalCodes service:

http://www.geonames.org/export/web-services.html#findNearbyPostalCodes

Cheers

Marc

Ranjeet

The premium service is using on a different server pool. Please consult your account page or the setup email for the domain name you should use. The domain name api.geonames.org is used for the free services.

The service returns 5 zip codes per default. If you need more codes you have to use the parameter maxRows to increase the max number of codes included in the response document.

Best

Marc

Ranjeet

Reverse geocoding is not an exact science, it is more an approximation. You will never get exactly the same result using different services.
Furthermore the radius parameter for GeoNames is km not miles, it is therefore obvious to get more results when using a larger radius.

Best Regards

Marc