Location codes indicate the accuracy of the assigned geocode. There are three types of geocodes: Address, ZIP+4 centroids, and Street centroids.
- Address geocodes are simple to interpret because they indicate a geocode made directly to a matched street segment (or two segments in the case of an intersection). Address geocodes are returned when the input street address was matched, or when an intersection match was obtained.
- Street centroid geocodes indicate that no match was made to the input address number, or that no address number was included on the input. A match was made to a street segment within the search area. The search area is based on the input ZIP code. If there is no input ZIP code, the search area is based on the finance area or input city, depending on your address match settings. Street centroids have a range of confidence depending on the search area used to obtain the matching street segment.
- ZIP+4 centroids have a range of confidence depending upon how the ZIP+4 centroid was determined.
A Location Code of E indicates a location code is not available. This usually occurs when you have requested ZIP Code centroids of a high quality, and one is not available for that match. It can occur infrequently when GeoStan does not have a 5-digit centroid location. GeoStan can also return an E location code type when it cannot standardize an input address and there is no input ZIP Code. In this case, do not assume the ZIP Code returned with the nonstandardized address is the correct ZIP Code because GeoStan did not standardize the address; therefore, GeoStan does not return geocoding or Census Block information.