Geocoding addresses

When a red dot appears next to a location on your ZenLocator dashboard, that means our geocoder was unable to find latitude and longitude for that address. Our geocoder is an always ongoing work in progress, but sometimes we just don’t have the data for the address (even if the address is valid).

How to fix the address that couldn't be auto-geocoded

If you navigate to that location's Address tab, and click on the address field, you might have some suggestions:

Sometimes, we don't have any suggestions, so you will have to enter the latitude and longitude manually. There are several sources online that will let you geocode an address for free.

How to prepare a spreadsheet for optimal geocoding

• Scan your data visually and clean it up. We see a lot of examples with missing street names and misspellings (eg: "123 Peach Srteet, Atlanta, GA").
• Do not add business names as part of your address. We have a "name" field for that. (eg: "Location name, 123 Peach Street, Atlanta, GA")
• Remove apartment numbers and floor numbers from your addresses. Use "visible address" field for that instead. (eg: "123 Peach Street, Apt 45, Atlanta, GA")
• Do not omit data. We see a lot of addresses that do not have address 1 or city fields. (eg: "United States" or just "123 Peach Street")
• Treat zip codes as strings, not numbers. (eg: "77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 2142", where "2142" should really be "02142").

Also, if you have many addresses to upload, create a copy of your spreadsheet with just a handful of locations and upload that first to test it. Once you confirm the addresses look good on the map, you can upload the whole spreadsheet.