Matching Options

Matching options let you set match restrictions, fallback, and multiple match settings so that the matching can be as strict or relaxed as you need. The strictest matching conditions require an exact match on house number, street name, postal code and no fallback to postal code centroids. The geocoder looks for an exact street address match within the postal code in the input address. Relaxing the conditions broadens the area in which it searches for a match. For example, by relaxing the postal code, the geocoder searches for candidates outside the postal code but within the city of your input address.

For guidelines on how to balance match rate and precision, see Balancing Match Rate and Precision.

Table 1. Matching Options for Australia
Option Name	Description
Keep multiple matches	Specifies whether to return results when the address matches to multiple candidates in the database. If this option is not selected, an address that results in multiple candidates will fail to geocode. If you select this option, specify the maximum number of candidates to return next to the check box.
Close matches only	Specifies whether to return only those geocoded results that are close match candidates. For example, if there are 10 candidates and two of them are close candidates, and you enable this option, only the two close matching candidates would be returned instead of all 10. To specify what is considered a close match, use the Close match criteria options. Address candidates are ranked according to how closely the input address matches these preferences.
Match mode	Specifies how to determine whether a candidate is a close match. One of the following: Custom This option allows you to specify which parts of a candidate address must match the input address to be considered a close match. Use the Close match criteria check boxes to specify the address elements you want. This is the default value. Relaxed All candidates are considered close.
All input	Specifies whether candidates must match all non-blank input fields to be considered a close match. For example, if an input address contains a city and postal code, then candidates for this address must match the city and postal code to be considered a close match.
House number	Specifies whether candidates must match the house number to be considered a close match. If you select this option you should also require an exact match on street name. This option does not significantly affect performance. It does, however, affect the type of match if the candidate address corresponds to a segment that does not contain any ranges. The type of match can also be affected when the house number range for a candidate does not contain the input house number.
Street	Specifies whether candidates must match the street name to be considered a close match. If a close match is found, the geocoder attempts expanded street name manipulation, which looks for candidates with names that sound like the input address or that are spelled improperly. This slows down performance but increases the match rate . If the geocoding database is indexed, the performance impact is reduced.
Locality	This option is not used for this country.
City	Specifies whether candidates must match the city to be considered a close match. If you do not require exact matches on city, the geocoder searches on the street address matched to the particular postal code, and considers other cities that do not match the name, but do match the postal code.
County	Specifies whether candidates must match the Local Government Authority (LGA) to be considered a close match.
State/Province	Specifies whether candidates must match the state to be considered a close match.
Postal code	Specifies whether candidates must match the postal code to be considered a close match. If you do not require exact match on postal codes, the geocoder searches a wider area for a match. While this results in slower performance, the match rate is higher because the request does not need to match exactly when it compares match candidates.
Prefer postal code over city	Specifies whether to return a close match when the postal code and street match exactly but the city does not. If you enable this option, the City input field is ignored if the postal code and street address are an exact match. If you do not enable this option, there may be situations where street address and postal code input are an exact match but the city name is not, and close matches are not returned. For example, without this option enabled, the following input address would return no close matches: `5 East St GLENROY VIC 3046` With this option enabled, this same input address would return the following close match: `5 EAST ST HADFIELD VIC 3046`