Google’s Address Autocomplete API provides suggestions to people who enter addresses via a textbox control. It does this by parsing and correcting them before suggesting them – this process includes address validation, standardization, and correction. However, it does not validate suite and apartment numbers, nor is it able to predict PO Boxes or APOs. Furthermore, Google doesn’t validate or standardize addresses from countries other than the US – which can prove to be inefficient for companies that deal with international orders.
This is particularly true for businesses with a large user base in Europe where the Google Maps Platform doesn’t support their country-specific address formats. Google’s geocoding API, which checks addresses to their geographic coordinates, also lacks validation and is rate limited to 100 queries per second. This can lead to slow responses, which frustrates users and increases the likelihood of form abandonment.
To mitigate these issues, some providers have developed an address validation tool that can be used in tandem with their autocomplete API. One such example is Smarty, which has address autocomplete with validation baked in so that the suggestions people select are valid, complete and accurate. The Smarty US & International autocomplete APIs also do more than Google’s, such as including suggestions down to the apartment number and providing standardized results. Smarty also doesn’t have oppressive attribution requirements like those required by Google’s. With such a wide variety of address validation solutions to choose from, it’s important that companies carefully evaluate each one before making a decision.
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