Using Master Location Data

Master Location Data (MLD) is a comprehensive, multi-sourced dataset that includes every known, addressable location in the United States. Because MLD is sourced from multiple data resources, it is a more complete universe of addresses than any single data source. A PreciselyID unique identifier is assigned to each physical addressable location within MLD, which allows users to more easily manage their address data and unlock a wealth of information linked to it.

Having a more complete universe of addresses available for matching results in an increase in high confidence address matches, and a decrease in false-positive matches. A false-positive match results when an incomplete input address is compared against an incomplete dataset, and the wrong match is returned because there is not enough information in either the input, or the matching dataset, to know that the address has been mismatched.

An example of this is an input address of “100 Main St”. In one matching data source there may be only a “100 E Main St”, and in another matching data source there may only be a “100 W Main St”, even though both “100 W Main St” and “100 E Main St” are valid. In both cases, the “100 Main St” input address would match to the record in the matching data source, and there would be a high level of confidence that the match was correct because it was only compared against a single address in each data source. In both cases, it would be a false-positive match since the input of address “100 Main St” could mean either “100 E Main St”, or “100 W Main St”. However, in the case of MLD, since the addresses come from multiple sources, both “100 W Main St” and “100 E Main St” would exist in the matching data. In this case, a multiple match would be returned for the input address “100 Main St”, rather than a false-positive match to either “100 W Main St”, or “100 E Main St”.

The premium matching confidence of MLD is further enhanced by the availability of more high-precision geocodes for the addressable locations included in the MLD dataset. MLD considers location information from multiple data sources to provide the highest precision geocode available for each address. This provides an increase in high-precision geocodes when compared with any single source.