A geocode can represent a building, an interpolated point along a street, the center of a feature, or an approximate area. More decimal places only describe the returned coordinate more precisely; they do not prove the provider located the correct entrance, parcel or address.
Four result types describe different evidence
| Type | What it generally means | Typical caution |
|---|---|---|
| ROOFTOP | Street-address-level location information | May not be an entrance or legal parcel point |
| RANGE_INTERPOLATED | Estimated between known points along a road | House position can be offset |
| GEOMETRIC_CENTER | Center of a feature such as a road or region | Not a specific building |
| APPROXIMATE | Approximate center or lower-detail result | Use only when area-level accuracy is acceptable |
Providers use different labels. If a service exposes no precision field, infer cautiously from returned address components and feature type rather than claiming building-level accuracy.
Decimal precision cannot repair an approximate source
A city centroid returned as 40.712800, -74.006000 still represents an area-level match. Adding more digits would make the number look exact without improving the underlying evidence. Store enough decimals to avoid unnecessary rounding, but evaluate accuracy from the match itself.
Build a repeatable review sample
- Include every country and major source system.
- Inspect incomplete and corrected addresses separately.
- Map all approximate or centroid-like results.
- Look for implausible clusters at city or country centers.
- Compare normalized country and postal code with the input.
- Record the reason when a human overrides a result.
Accuracy is always relative to the decision
| Use | Often acceptable | Usually insufficient |
|---|---|---|
| National sales visualization | City or postal-code centroid | Wrong country or region |
| Service-area planning | Reviewed street or neighborhood point | Unreviewed city centroid |
| Delivery routing | Verified address or entrance | Interpolation on the wrong road side |
| Parcel/legal analysis | Authoritative parcel data | Ordinary consumer geocode |
| Emergency response | Agency-approved dispatch data | General-purpose geocoding alone |
Sources and methodology
Technical claims were checked against the sources below on August 18, 2026. Product limits and third-party pricing can change; verify the live documentation before designing a production workflow.
Common questions
What is a rooftop geocode?
In Google’s terminology, ROOFTOP means the result is a precise geocode for which Google has location information accurate down to street-address precision. It does not necessarily identify the preferred entrance or legal parcel boundary.
What does range interpolated mean?
The point was estimated between known locations along a road segment. It can be suitable for general mapping while being inappropriate for entrance-level navigation or parcel analysis.
Are six decimal places accurate to a building?
The coordinate notation may be numerically precise, but source accuracy can still be a city center or interpolated street point. Decimal places and real-world accuracy are different concepts.
How many results should I manually review?
Use a risk-based sample across countries, source systems, status types and precision levels. High-stakes uses require stronger validation than a marketing territory map.