Address Verification Guidelines can lead to different interpretations and some aspects may be applied differently by country. This document is intended as a specific guide for Portugal.
The main goals of the Address Verification task type are to:
The 5 main steps can be exposed as follows:
Step 1 – Determine if address is unambiguous and is a full address
Step 2 – Determine validity for a real address and indicate coordinates
Step 3 – When Invalid – Evaluate if Reasonable or not
Step 4 – Evaluate Pin Accuracy (only if Reasonable)
Step 5 – Evaluate Response Address Accuracy (only if Reasonable)
Step 1 – Determine if address is unambiguous and is a full address
Guidelines 3.2 “If a human could understand the exact location that’s desired, then the query is valid“. The query can lead to different interpretations and analysts can wonder to which extent they should correct, or not, the query address including extra words, having incorrect, missing or confusing components.
Query Address [Rua 1 de maio Cercal do Alentejo] is incorrect https://bit.ly/3IogrCT.
The Pin is in Cercal do Alentejo where “Rua 1 de maio” does not exist.
There is a street called “Largo 1 de maio” nearby. A search shows that “Rua 1 de maio” exists 200 km away in a different locality also called Cercal (but in LAMAS) https://bit.ly/3Imqzvz.
Based on Guidelines 3.3, corrections are possible when the query address has spelling mistakes, formatting issue or unnecessary info. Therefore, corrections have to be applied mainly to obvious incorrect components like postal codes or street name or locality with obvious spelling mistake.
Example 1 has to be rated Invalid (Address does not exist) – Not Reasonable.
The Result Address ;should not be consulted for correcting the Query Address .
When the Quen/ Address does not exist, analysts shouId NEVIER try to get a clue clicking “\/ALID” just to see what would be the ResuIt Address in order to evaluate if a correction is possible or not.
For instance, in the above example, the Result Address is ‘Largo 1 de Mslio 1, Cereal do Alentejo”. Largo 1 de Maio exists in Cereal do Alentejo, but despite that, no correction should be made to use “Largo” instead of “Rua”.
Step 2 – Determine validity for a real address and indicate coordinates
For Portugal, after determining that the address is unambiguous and is a full address, any single reliable source should be sufficient to confirm the address as VALID.
The 2 Webinars under the Quality section (under Quality PT and under General Webinar) show ineffective search steps for Portugal, indicating to first do a search by using postal service for an evidence of the query address.
USPS always indicates street number but CTT very rarely, for this reason, for Portugal, we recommend to use street imagery as a first step to find the street number evidence.
In this sense, that information alone is sufficient to indicate “Valid” – exception is the queried address containing a unit number for a POI within Parent POI (unit often not visible with Streetview).
Rua Doutor Eduardo Burnay, 28 Ericeira.
There is no Streetview evidence for number 28, however number 30 can be identified in street imagery https://bit.ly/3FQe2yV so the number 28 is the previous building at coordinates 38.96219048465249, -9.416381734351743. In addition, there is an Official website and a recent Facebook page: https://ericeirasurfcamp.com/contacts/ https://www.facebook.com/ericeirasurfcamp/?locale=pt_BR (Posts Feb 2023) There is a satellite view showing the POI but on a different street than the address on the Official website and Facebook http://bit.ly/3lB6sRG. Satellite view being often unreliable should not be considered automatically reliable as the Quality Webinars show. Combination of reliable sources = Valid.
Guidelines 3. “If you cannot prove that an address is Invalid, give it the benefit of doubt and rate it as Valid”. If no reliable evidence shows that an address does not exist, rate it Valid.
For instance, Query Address [Caminho da Curajeira, 25, Caniço, Ilha da Madeira] does not have any street imagery or any strong reliable evidence other than a source that has not always been reliable in the past http://bit.ly/3TFZBTS. Benefit of doubt should be applied and address rated Valid.
Without street imagery, it is difficult to find exact coordinates. GL 5.3 indicates that if you cannot determine the target location’s centre latitude/longitude, fill in the latitude and longitude field with 0,0 and leave a comment explaining why
you did that. Incidentally, satellite view showing the name of a POI is often not reliable to locate the POI when street businesses are in a row and cannot be considered alone for exact coordinates.
Step 3 – When Invalid – Evaluate if Reasonable or not
Some query addresses are automatically rated Invalid. This is the case when the address is only a street name or a praça.
“Praça Machado dos Santos, Setúbal” is both a street and a praça https://bit.ly/3Yw9oO3. Because no roof is associated, it is not a single unique location (the praça has no roof/street number and is not a single location) = INVALID – but Reasonable.
When the time comes to evaluate if the query address is reasonable or not, we must first determine if the address exists or not:
For instance, Rua de São Pedro, Santiago do Cacém https://bit.ly/3xrNWxv might be hard to determine with Satellite view, but Streetview clearly shows the hill and that the curve is too accentuated at the end http://bit.ly/3YMk0YS
Step 4 – Evaluate Pin Accuracy (only if Reasonable)
The essential element to remember is that in Address Verification, thie Pin reflects the Query Address, not the Response: Address.
Step 5 – Evaluate Response Address Accuracy (only if Reasonable)
The main point is that in Address Verification the Response Address is rated based on how accurately it reflects the query address.
CTT becomes very useful at this point to confirm that all address components are correct.
Often Google Maps does not bring us to the correct location of the queried address. Using other Map Applications such as Bing Map and Herewego can help to confirm the correct location.
According to GL 7.6, you may occasionally be asked to rate the Response Address for an Invalid-Unreasonable Query Address. In these cases, always rate the Response Address Can’t Verify.