Data quality

Use Overture Places with the confidence score visible.

Open places data is useful because it is portable. It is also uneven. Open Places API exposes confidence on every result and accepts min_confidence so callers can choose their own quality threshold instead of guessing what the API filtered away.

Read the API docs Data rights Overture Places docs

Confidence is part of the public result.

Every place result includes confidence, rounded to two decimals. A request can pass min_confidence from 0 to 1. The filter applies before the page is returned, so a low-confidence result will not appear in the response when it falls below the threshold.

curl -G "https://api.openplacesapi.com/v1/places" \
  --data-urlencode "category=pharmacy" \
  --data-urlencode "lat=40.7128" \
  --data-urlencode "lon=-74.0060" \
  --data-urlencode "radius_mi=10" \
  --data-urlencode "min_confidence=0.85" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPEN_PLACES_API_KEY"

Start with the job, then pick the threshold.

Use case	Suggested starting point	Why
Lead lists and CRM enrichment	`min_confidence=0.85`	Better precision usually matters more than maximum recall.
Nearby context for listings	`min_confidence=0.75` to `0.85`	Show useful context while sampling categories that matter to the user experience.
Exploration and QA	Omit the filter	Inspect the full distribution before choosing a cutoff.

What Overture Places does and does not include.

Returned when present

Names, coordinates, distance, categories, addresses, confidence, operating status, phones, and websites.

Not in the base schema

Opening hours, ratings, reviews, photos, popularity, menus, and real-time availability are not returned.

Coordinate caveat

Current production coordinates are derived from Overture bounding-box centroids, not survey-grade entrance points.

Script caveat

Japanese and Korean coverage is live, but non-Latin-script search is not yet supported. Use romanized query text for now.

Quality FAQ.

What is the confidence field?

confidence is Overture's record-level quality signal, returned as a number from 0 to 1. Open Places API rounds it to two decimals and does not silently filter it unless you pass min_confidence.

What min_confidence should I start with?

For production enrichment or lead lists, start around 0.85 and inspect a sample. For exploratory discovery, omit min_confidence first, then choose a threshold from the returned scores.

Does Overture Places include opening hours or ratings?

No. Open Places API does not return opening hours, ratings, reviews, photos, or popularity signals because those are not part of the Overture Places base schema.