How to build a regional search

Searching for widget companies in a certain geographical area

[rubenski]

My site offers information about widget companies and their widgets and I want to enable users to search for a widget sales point in their area. I have to do this for two countries (Netherlands and Belgium).

How would you build such a thing? I have seen sites that let you specify your postal code and the max number of kilometers the sales point can be removed from that postal code area. I suppose they use a large database containing postal code <-> geo location info?

I am looking for a rather easy solutions, but I suppose you need some sort of service to provide geo-location info. Any thoughts on this?

[rubenski]

Kind of answered my own question here. I searched on the Dutch internet and found one postal code - geo location service. However, the added value of a regional search doesn't quite cover the costs of at least €800/year, so I'll just put this idea aside untill my site gets more visitors.

[danieljean]

Hmmm... that's a bit steep. Unfortunately that type of data is very expensive, even though countries that make it free will be the first to see an industry built around creating useful services with it- so far that's the US, even though Canada was also a pioneer.

I suggest you keep looking a bit more... some offer webservices (ESRI, MS/Mappoint). Geourl used to list a few places that had cheaper commercial services, but they are down at the moment for renovations.

And depending on what quality of information you need, you may be able to get free data from your government, or cheap databases that could be slightly out of date- something to work with until you have a proof of concept and show you can make money with it :)