Geocoding -- 10 vs 10.1

[MarkParr]

I am running 10.1 ArcDesktop Standard and testing geocoding of some existing Shapefiles.  I have some previous 10 locator files that still exist and that work when I do an address FIND search.  I am defining my 10.1 locator files using the exact same paramaters/fields previously used for the original 10 locators.  However, when I do an address FIND with my new locator, the results consistently return nothing back.  If I search using the older 10 created locator I get results. 

Any ideas?

[JohnJones4]

I have SP-1 with 10.1 and I still have the problem with address locators and having to tweak the Geocoding options.  Will there be a
fix?
Thanks
jj

[ShanaBritt]

I have SP-1 with 10.1 and I still have the problem with address locators and having to tweak the Geocoding options.  Will there be a
fix?
Thanks
jj

There are no plans to change this default setting, as this is by design. The default design of the locator is to not return match results when you build the locator without zones and do not include zones with the input address because of the performance cost when having to search through the entire index of the reference data to return multiple candidates, which would take longer to do. Of the multiple candidates returned, there may be many that are correct. You wouldn't know which is the correct candidate to be matched if you didn't have a zone.  The performance hit would be really significant for larger geographies, but I know a lot of customers create local locators for their city or county and create them without referencing a zone cause it's all the same.  But, just about every city has a Main St�?� how do you know which Main St is correct if the county has multiple cities and they all have a Main St? Or like in Chicago, IL, the street Lake Shore Drive spans 15 different zip codes.

The article "Dual Ranges address locators created with ArcGIS for Desktop 10.1 do not return matches" provides a more permanent solution that modifies the USAddress locator template to make 'Yes' the default setting so you don�??t have the change the properties of every locator after you create it.

The match with no zone setting was also discussed in the Geocoding -Advanced Techniques technical workshop at the 2012 International User Conference, which can be viewed in the demo  between time frame 20:49 -  20:06. The corresponding slides for the time frame in the demo can be found at http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc12/tech-workshops/tw_2022.pdf starting at Managing Performance.

I hope the above information helps and if it does not, please submit a request to Technical Support.

-Shana

[deleted-user-vpHnfyiCToFz]

There are no plans to change this default setting, as this is by design. The default design of the locator is to not return match results when you build the locator without zones and do not include zones with the input address because of the performance cost when having to search through the entire index of the reference data to return multiple candidates, which would take longer to do. Of the multiple candidates returned, there may be many that are correct. You wouldn't know which is the correct candidate to be matched if you didn't have a zone.  The performance hit would be really significant for larger geographies, but I know a lot of customers create local locators for their city or county and create them without referencing a zone cause it's all the same.  But, just about every city has a Main St�?� how do you know which Main St is correct if the county has multiple cities and they all have a Main St? Or like in Chicago, IL, the street Lake Shore Drive spans 15 different zip codes.

The article "Dual Ranges address locators created with ArcGIS for Desktop 10.1 do not return matches" provides a more permanent solution that modifies the USAddress locator template to make 'Yes' the default setting so you don�??t have the change the properties of every locator after you create it.

The match with no zone setting was also discussed in the Geocoding -Advanced Techniques technical workshop at the 2012 International User Conference, which can be viewed in the demo  between time frame 20:49 -  20:06. The corresponding slides for the time frame in the demo can be found at http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc12/tech-workshops/tw_2022.pdf starting at Managing Performance.

I hope the above information helps and if it does not, please submit a request to Technical Support.

-Shana

Thank you for sending the geocoding behavior change in 10.1 information to the forum discussion.

[JoshWhite]

Could we maybe get a new locator that does default to no zones?  I just have no reason to use them as my addresses are only with my city and don't cross county or state lines.  I do use Left/Right City though.  Also the zones, does this only work for Zip codes?  Could we just use the Left/Right City as the zone by mapping the zipcode fields to these?

[ShanaBritt]

Could we maybe get a new locator that does default to no zones?  I just have no reason to use them as my addresses are only with my city and don't cross county or state lines.  I do use Left/Right City though.  Also the zones, does this only work for Zip codes?  Could we just use the Left/Right City as the zone by mapping the zipcode fields to these?

Josh:

The default setting of the address locator for the 'Match with no zones' property is 'No', which means that if no zone (zip, city, community..) is not included when you build the locator or part of the input address, no matches will be returned. The article "Dual Ranges address locators created with ArcGIS for Desktop 10.1 do not return matches" provides a permanent solution that modifies the USAddress locator template to make 'Yes' the default setting so you don�??t have the change the properties of every locator after you create it. Making the permanent change as described in the article would not require that a new locator template be provided and you could create the address locator with just the house number ranges and street components without a zone. In this case the input address for the locator the house number and the street, for example,  "380 New York St".

If you used the default option and used Left/Right City as part of the field mapping to the city zone when building the locator, you would need to include the city as part of the input address when using the address locator. You could map community name to the city zone component instead of city and that would meet the zone requirement for the locator when using the default setting of 'No' for the 'Match with no zones' property.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

-Shana