Google Places vs Addressfinder - What’s the difference
On the surface, Addressfinder and the Google Places API can appear to be offering a similar solution. But if you look a little closer, you will see that the offerings are substantially different. When looking to use Google places for business, it’s important to first understand how their service compares to other address solutions within the market.
The main differences are:
Data Quality - Addressfinder only includes verified addresses from reputable sources. The address sources that Google includes are not published, and are not thought to be from verified sources. The Google dataset is missing sub-address data (such as units) and PO Box data.
Customer Service - Addressfinder’s dedicated customer success team provides technical and account support via telephone and email. Google does not offer support.
Business Support - Addressfinder supports local businesses and organisations with what is considered normal practice - purchase orders, invoices, quotations, 20 day billing cycles and with the usual electronic payment options. Google Places requires you to fit their model with mandatory credit card payments only.
Refresh Frequency - Addressfinder refreshes the dataset from official sources on a monthly basis. The refresh cycle of Google’s places autocomplete is unpublished. We believe it to be semi-annually at best.
In summary, you choose Addressfinder because you need quality address data, a reliable service and access to local support when you need it.
Data Sources
We find the main reason customers move from Google to Addressfinder is due to missing addresses - specifically both unit/flat/apartment addresses and new builds. For many businesses, a missing address means either a lost customer or lost time and money resolving a manually entered address.
| Addressfinder | Google Places API |
|---|---|
| Addressfinder makes use of address data from several government and postal agencies. New Zealand Post - we ingest the PAF, also known as the Postal Address File. This includes every address in New Zealand that NZ Post will deliver mail to, including PO Boxes. Land Information New Zealand - we ingest the AIMS address dataset, which is an official aggregation of address data provided by local councils. Statistics New Zealand - we ingest several census datasets, including meshblock, statistical area classifications, regional and territorial authority boundaries, as well as electoral and maori authority boundaries. Fire and Emergency New Zealand - the canonical suburb and locality boundaries are used to ensure all our metadata is accurate. Customer suggested addresses - we know that new addresses are created every day, especially with the current building surge. We invite our customers to submit new addresses to our Address Submission Service. We aim to verify and then publish these addresses within 3-5 working days. New dataset sources - we are investigating the ingestion of an additional address dataset from LINZ called CADS. We are also in the process of ingesting the NZAD dataset from NZ Post. |
Google is guarded about where they acquired their addresses from. They will not publish the source of their data. PO Box data is not included. Sub addresses are not included. This means you are unable to verify any unit address such as: Unit 315, 438 Queen Street, Auckland Central, Auckland 1010 |
Refresh Frequency
New addresses are created every day, but these are only added to the databases when they are updated. With today’s fast pace of building new homes, it is more important than ever that these addresses are added promptly.
| AddressFinder | Google Places API |
|---|---|
| Monthly | Unknown - semi-annual at best |
Customer Service
Customer service is the other reason why businesses using Google switch to AddressFinder. If you have any difficulties, or cannot explain your credit card bill - there is no one to call.
| AddressFinder | Google Places API |
|---|---|
| Customer Support - we have a dedicated customer success team who are motivated to help you with all your addressing needs. We are real people, who you can speak to on the phone, or over email or chat. |
Customer Support - self service model. |
| Business Support - you can expect normal business practices such as: - Tax-compliant invoices (full history) - Purchase order support - Quotation documents - 20 day billing cycles - Bank payment and credit card payment options You also have the option of a dedicated account manager. |
Business Support - you can download a generic invoice in PDF format. |
| Government Support - AddressFinder is listed on the Government Marketplace. Our customers include many government departments and ministries, as well as local and regional governments. | Government Support - unlisted. |
Address Services
| AddressFinder | Google Places API |
|---|---|
| Address Verification & Cleansing - Our solution has been refined over 5 years for increased validation accuracy. We offer both: - direct API access to verification services. - an interactive service to batch process an uploaded file of addresses. |
Address Verification & Cleansing - not provided. |
| Address Autocomplete - Best of class autocomplete solution which consistently provides target addresses in the top results. Each address contains a wide variety of metadata (see data sources above). |
Address Autocomplete - a bloated address and business search service oriented around maps. |
| Browser Support - current and historic browsers as far back as Internet Explorer version 6. | Browser Support - Modern browsers only. Support for Internet Explorer v11 only, and that terminates mid 2022. |
Enterprise Requirements
| AddressFinder | Google Places API |
|---|---|
| Testing - Stand alone developer account provided for test purposes. | Testing - No test accounts provided. |
| Enterprise firewalls - Support for enterprise firewalls with static IP address rules and “allow lists” of authorised IP addresses. | Enterprise firewalls - not supported. |
| Privacy - Privacy assured with AU and NZ based hosting only. Privacy policy protects customers. | Privacy - Not guaranteed, with US government access (apparently). |
| CRM - Support for common CRM platforms such as WebDynamics and Salesforce | CRM - no special support. |
Pricing
| AddressFinder | Google Places API |
|---|---|
| Free services - Free accounts with up to 300 address searches per month, and trial accounts with more generous quantities. No credit card required. | Free services - Have a US$200 account credit each month, but this is shared with all users within the organisation and for all Google APIs being used. Requires a credit card to activate service, even when below the free allowance. |
| Budgeting/Forecasting - Easier to predict costs, based on a fixed cost per address used. | Budgeting/Forecasting - Difficult to understand pricing model. Price is based on a varying combination of query type and requested metadata. |
| Reporting - Interactive reporting and charting for each website or service. Full history available. Export usage information at any time. | Reporting - Basic usage reporting for up to 30 days, but difficult to determine any detail on spending. No detail on individual API calls made, or from different origins. |
Service Innovation & Continuous Improvement
| AddressFinder | Google Places API |
|---|---|
| Continuous improvement - we aim to provide New Zealand’s premium address solution. We achieve this by continuing to invest in our solution, with recent improvements including: - Improved Autocomplete APIs - new algorithms have moved beyond the basic full text search approach, with desired results presented to users with fewer keystrokes. - Improved Verification APIs - improvements made during the Covid Lockdown in 2020 have resulted in higher match rates, while reducing the false-positive rate. - Accessibility improvements made to the widget enable the use of screen readers for visually impaired users. We were supported by the DIA in this initiative. |
Continuous improvement - the Google Places API has changed little over the last 5 years. |
Summary
We have set out to provide the New Zealand market with a dependable, premium address service at a fair price.
We believe that we have thoroughly demonstrated this. We have only been successful because we listen to the needs of our customers, and then look to continuously improve our solution.
