GeoNames Home | Postal Codes | Download / Webservice | About 

GeoNames Forum
  [Search] Search   [Recent Topics] Recent Topics   [Groups] Back to home page 
[Register] Register / 
[Login] Login 
Advice, quick learning or tips please  XML
Forum Index -> General
Author Message
jonny512379



Joined: 11/02/2017 20:41:32
Messages: 10
Offline

Hello All

I am hoping for some quick advice on the GeoNames data please.

Background:
A few weeks ago i purchased a competitors worldcities data; Unfortunately i am finding that the data has many inconsistencies in the naming of places, so i am finding i am writing code that has "guessing" in or to return a default place name if there is no match, etc = not good coding...
The main issue i have with the data is, there seems to be many missing areas. 1 the area i live in within England is missing, and 2 another test i did "tenerife" is also missing. 3 i have found other areas too, but don't recall them. This make the data i bought, unusable....

Anyway, i am now looking at GeoNames and i am hoping members here can tell me if this data is suitable for my needs please?

what i am doing and need the data for:
- i am building a hotel booking site
- this is worldwide, so i need to have a database that has all areas of the world where someone may book a hotel.
- i do not need longitude and latitude data, as i am getting this from the Google Map API so that it is the exact geo data of the hotel. However Geo data for genneral areas may be useful.
- i need all areas to have parents data/ID.
- i may need to add in additional areas or attractions or airports, etc. although these are not technically areas, i feel the best way to treat these is as an area.
- i will need to import all data into mySQL (without needing to do this manually...)
- i will also need a "predictive search" facility on my site. with the data i bought, i needed to do a "data dump" of the data the "predictive search" required into a single table. i needed to do this so that the query worked fast enough (as the user typed). i need to know if it is possible to do this with the geoNames data too. or even better if there is already a data format this is usable for this (and fast enough)
- As i will need to filter out most areas, i will need to add columns to the data, possible done in the "predictive search" so that too many areas are not returned, And so that i can better order the "predictive search" date.

If anyone could let me know if they think the data is suitable for my needs please and most importantly, will it import into mySQL ok and with hierarchy data for all areas?

I do not mind paying for the professional edition of the data, as i need the data to be as accurate as possible.
I would however like to know the format of how the updates are made, as i will need to import this as simply as possible into the database, without overwriting any modifications i have made.

Although the site i am working on is a "hotel booking system" the search on the site is essentially searching areas, which is why i need it to be spot on.

Sorry for all the questions and maybe some silly questions that i probably know the answer to, however i have asked as i dont want to make the mistake of buying the wrong data again....
My abilities with SQL and coding are good, however understanding geoData is a whole new area, and as i am sure many will agree it can be very complicated and i am no expert in this area, so am looking for a crash course in this of "just the aspect i need to learn" and hopefully some pointers.

Any help is much appreciated!


Best Regards
Jon
[Email]
 
Forum Index -> General
Go to:   
Powered by JForum 2.1.5 © JForum Team