Google Geocoding API request_denied

Question

I am trying to geocode a batch of around 400 addresses using the Google Geocoding API through my rails app.

In one of my controllers I have these lines

require "net/http"
require "uri"
uri = URI.parse("http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?")
response = Net::HTTP.post_form(uri, {"address" => '5032-forbes-ave', 'sensor' => 'false'})

But I always get back ""status": "REQUEST_DENIED" from that.

Does anyone know why I am getting this, or if there is a way I can see exactly the HTTP request that is being sent so I can try to debug it?

Update: This is the request that I am trying to make, if I do this from my browser I get a normal response from the api: http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=5032-forbes-ave&sensor=false

Answer 1

You are POSTing the request but in your browser you are using GET.

So this work perfectly:

uri = URI.parse("http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=5032-forbes-ave&sensor=false")
response = Net::HTTP.get(uri)

The response is String itself and it contains some JSON (I'm not Google API's expert)