CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-mapsgoogle-places-apigoogle-nearbypoint-of-interest
funkfux
funkfux

Reputation: 293

Google Places API - Nearby Search not as accurate as Maps?

Overall goal: map a list of completely unknown GPS coordinates to closest points of interests (I dont know if the coordinates are referring to a shop, mountain, museum etc.).

The Google Place API, exactly the Nearby Search (https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/search?hl=de#PlaceSearchRequests), is theoretically solving my problem: I can pass GPS coordinates and a radius and get a list of "places" back. Unfortunately, the results are not really precise. However if I "google" the very same coordinates in Maps, I get very satisfying results.

Examples:

48.12429, 11.56774: Maps shows shop "Kenneth Kobonpue" really close by; API call with radius 10/50/100 does not mention this shop at all

48.15100, 11.57964: Maps shows University of Munich; API call with radius 10/50/100 just mentions some special university rooms

48.16404, 11.60370: Maps shows "English Garden" (park in Munich); API call with radius 10/50/100 does not mention this park once

etc.

Question: Is there an option to get better results using this API? Is there another (Google) API more suitable to my usecase?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 6992

Answers (2)

gvijay
gvijay

Reputation: 1499

This seems to be a recent bug, I am pretty sure I saw thsi working before.

Maps search shows very different set of places vs using the APi, regardless of ranking parameter https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/nearbysearch/json?keyword=grocery&radius=5000&location=51.5183332%2C-0.2752538&key=[YOUR_KEY_HERE]

In this case, it is very clear that the platform API returns incorrect results using a different center point than the parameter provided.

Upvotes: 0

smga08
smga08

Reputation: 614

Google Maps(maps.google.com) and Google Maps Platform APIs are two different products and will behave differently at times. Their features, results and behaviors are not expected to be always the same.

In general, Places API requests returns the prominent places depending on the parameters you have provided. It is possible that the place you are looking for is not a prominent point-of-interest given the distance from your location.

Taking your sample for the location, "48.16404, 11.60370", you'll get the expected "English Garden" in a distance of 500. Here's a sample request: https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/nearbysearch/json?location=48.16404%2C%2011.60370&radius=500&key=YOUR_API_KEY

Another alternative is to use the "rankby" parameter and set it to "distance". This will bias the results according to their distance from the given location. However, you need to specify one or more of the following parameters: keyword, name, or type (required parameters if results are rank by distance). Here's another example: https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/nearbysearch/json?location=48.16404%2C%2011.60370&keyword=garden&rankby=distance&key=YOUR_API_KEY

In addition, by default, each Nearby Search returns up to 20 establishment results per query only. However, each search can return as many as 60 results, split across three pages. It is also possible that the point of interest you are looking for is in the succeeding pages. You can use the next_page_token parameter in another search request to access additional results.

For more information regarding Places Nearby search, you can checkout this link: https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/search#PlaceSearchRequests

Upvotes: 2

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