Geolocation web service recommendations

Question

Does anyone have any recommendations on geolocation web services (preferably free!)?

Planning on using it in an asp.net app, I\'d heard Google might have something.

Answer 1

We use the Google Maps API and it's very straightforward to use. It takes some figuring out to begin with, but we were up and running using the geocoding portion in less than a day.

Answer 2

I am a happy user of geocoder.us.

Answer 3

MaxMind is not free, but their SaaS (web service) offering is VERY reasonably priced.

Answer 4

I'm fairly sure you are not allowed to cache google data either.

Source you must not (nor may you permit anyone else to): 10.3 pre-fetch, cache, or store any Content, except that you may store limited amounts of Content for the purpose of improving the performance of your Maps API Implementation if you do so temporarily, securely, and in a manner that does not permit use of the Content outside of the Service;

So saving the geocoded data is probably a bit of a no-no.

However- I have not checked but highly doubt Open Street Map have the same restrictions.

Hope that helps

Answer 5

We ended up using these guys in the end - dead simple HTTP API:

http://www.maxmind.com/app/web_services_city_usage