Geocoding is the process of converting addresses into geographic coordinates. Address scrubbing is the process of correcting and verifying addresses.

There are several methods for address scrubbing and geocoding, each with various measures of accuracy and therefore usefulness towards specific applications. For the purposes of delivering legal documents, accuracy is crucial so that deliveries can be done to the correct premises first time, and thus save time and money in legal fees.

There are several geocoding providers that will supply an approximate location which uses the street length and number of houses to calculate the estimated GPS co-ordinates. We use a much more sophisticated system that can give you the GPS co-ordinates with close to 99% accuracy to the exact house even if only a stand number in the area is provided.

For highly accurate geocoding, a comprehensive and accurate National Point Address Database (NPAD) map system is required. Sophisticated algorithms also clean the addresses and get it into a consistent format for geocoding. Due to the human error factor in address capturing, even the most sophisticated algorithms only match around 30-50% of addresses accurately. Therefore, an efficient process is required for geocoding using manual process and human operators, thereafter. This makes geocoding a complex process, requiring specialised software, good quality data, and experienced staff.

For this reason, we have different geocoding options which will provide close to 99% accuracy:

1. Fully Automated – A completely automated system, which although is more accurate than most other providers due to our NPAD map system, will still only be able to interpret up to 50% of your addresses accurately.
2. Automated + Manual Intervention – An automatic as well as manual intervention process which will still only be able to interpret up to 70% of your addresses accurately.
3. Automated + Manual Intervention + Manual Searches – The final method where we manually search through multiple map systems and can find old street names, locally named streets and alternative street names used by different map providers, which will be able to interpret up to 90% of your addresses accurately.

The other approx 10% of your addresses are usually incomplete, incorrect or do not exist and will not be found using any method.

For the legal notices our company delivers, we always use option 3 and have proved the efficiency of the more accurate geocoding method, which is why we provide GPS co-ordinates and photos as proof for court proceedings to eliminate all doubt, if, or where, a delivery took place.

Please note: Percentages quoted above are averaged. Some batches may be higher or lower percentages depending on the quality of the addresses given.6R1