limit address search by distance

Question

I recently joined a team working on an application that maintains listings with addresses. The user searches, and includes their zipcode, and the application displays the distance to each listing. Currently we use the Google Maps API for this. Reading through questions here on StackOverflow seem to suggest that this is the best way of doing things:

• php/mysql zip code proximity search
• Search engine by distance

However, while reading through the API documentation, this seems to be expressly forbidden unless we also show a map for each result (and possibly also for each result we filter out, depending on how you read the following statement):

Use of the Distance Matrix API must relate to the display of information on a Google Map; for example, to determine origin-destination pairs that fall within a specific driving time from one another, before requesting and displaying those destinations on a map. Use of the service in an application that doesn't display a Google map is prohibited.

( https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/distancematrix/ )

What's the best way to accomplish this without running afoul of any API terms?

Answer 1

do you consider the Geo::PostalCode module (perl)? It uses maxmind database to calculate distances between locations (and there is bind in different languages).