How to check if an address is a business or residential address

views:

answers:

+1 Q:

How to check if an address is a business or residential address

Hi all,

I have a dataset that contains many addresses (60,000-ish entries). I want to classify these addresses into either residential or business addresses.

Does anyone know a good API/Service to get started doing this?

-I don't think the google maps geocoder can do this at this time.

-Fedex and UPS both seem to have API's but they are only released to companies that are shipping products (sort of a need to know basis only)

UPS API: http://www.usps.com/ncsc/addressmgmt/RDI.htm

Fedex API:http://fedex.com/us/developer/product/basics.html

This is a hobby project, so free or cheap are better! But paid solutions are not out of the question.

This is a bit of a hack, but why not write a script to check to see if the first line of the address contains any of the last names from the census list? That should get you most of the residential addresses. Assuming the person's/business's name is part of the address you have.

Swordgleam 2010-10-27 18:09:57

Ben Holland 2010-10-27 20:04:10

That is a good point. You could refine it a bit to avoid characters that aren't in names and to look for first name or Mr/Mrs/etc and a last name, but it's still far from perfect.

Swordgleam 2010-10-27 22:12:23

+1 A:

Take a look at the API at http://compass.webservius.com

It's a listing of 16+ million businesses in the US (aims to be a complete business listing). If an address isn't there, chances are it's a residential address.

Eugene Osovetsky 2010-10-27 23:44:44

This looks really good. I'll have to give it a spin. I'll post back some code if it worked out!

Ben Holland 2010-10-28 21:10:15

ansaurus

tags:

views:

answers:

How to check if an address is a business or residential address

related questions