Parcel Geocoding

Question

Original User: mburns27

I am using a parcel layer as the reference data for building an address locator.  The address locator builds without errors but does not return any matches when I use it to geocode a table of addresses.  I do not have good documentation on the process, so maybe I am just missing a step.  I am using ArcMap 10.  The parcels layer has individual fields for house number, street name, and street type.  The address table is in Excel and I have used text to columns to create individual fields identical to the parcels layer.  Where am I going wrong?

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JoeBorgione · Answer

Ruth is absolutely correct: you don't have to ditch excel but you may want to.

If you search for excel in this forum, you're going to find a whole lot more 'problems with excel' over 'I love excel so much' threads.

Don't get me wrong; excel is a very good product and a convenient tool to use in some cases. I just prefer to perform GIS analyses with true data base tools.

Anonymous User · Answer

Original User: emerickr

You don't necessarily need to ditch Excel, but do save as 2003-2007 format (.xls) and not 2010 (.xlsx). You can make a new address column in your existing table by concatenating the existing fields.

For example, if you have columns A-C for Number, Street, and Street Type, you could use column D to concatenate these using this expression for row 2: =A2 & " " & B2 & " " & C2. See attached images.

Also, there is some good info here: http://resources.arcgis.com/gallery/file/geocoding.

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JoeBorgione · Answer

I am using a parcel layer as the reference data for building an address locator.  The address locator builds without errors but does not return any matches when I use it to geocode a table of addresses.  I do not have good documentation on the process, so maybe I am just missing a step.  I am using ArcMap 10.  The parcels layer has individual fields for house number, street name, and street type.  The address table is in Excel and I have used text to columns to create individual fields identical to the parcels layer.  Where am I going wrong?

First, ditch excel; import that data into a table in a geodatabase.  Be sure that none of your field names have spaces or other special characters in them. Excel is famous for these.

Instead of 'exploding' your table of addresses, leave them in the form of '1234 S MAIN ST'  Make sure your have pointed to the correct individual fields in your reference table.