Geocoding (sometimes called forward geocoding) uses a description of a location, most typically a postal address or place name, to find geographic coordinates from spatial reference data such as building polygons, land parcels, street addresses, postal codes (e.g. ZIP codes, CEDEX) and so on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocoding
Geocoding is the process of transforming a description of a location—such as a pair of coordinates, an address, or a name of a place—to a location on the earth's surface. You can geocode by entering one location description at a time or by providing many of them at once in a table. The resulting locations are output as geographic features with attributes, which can be used for mapping or spatial analysis. You can quickly find various kinds of locations through geocoding.
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/0025/002500000001000000.htm
This involves some guesswork and risks geocoding errors. For example, if the address entered is 6256 Pershing Street, and the only reference to Pershing in the database is to Pershing Avenue, then assigning the geocode to avenue is not likely to be an error.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/nij/mapping/ch4_3.html
If we break the word geocoding into its components, it means coding the Earth-providing geographic reference information that can be used for computer mapping. The history of geocoding is tied to efforts at the U.S. Census Bureau to find ways of mapping data gathered across the country, address by address. In the 1960 Census of Population and Housing, questionnaires were mailed to respondents and picked up from each household by enumerators.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/nij/mapping/ch4_3.html
Then, it becomes necessary to deal with the misses, those addresses that did not geocode automatically. Handling misses is done manually. The bad address is displayed with the closest possible matches the database includes. Analysts use these options to select the most likely match.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/nij/mapping/ch4_3.html
Geocoding is vitally important for crime mapping since it is the most commonly used way of getting crime or crime-related data into a GIS. Crime records almost always have street addresses or other locational attributes, and this information enables the link between the database and the map.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/nij/mapping/ch4_3.html
A simple method of geocoding is address interpolation. This method makes use of data from a street geographic information system where the street network is already mapped within the geographic coordinate space. Each street segment is attributed with address ranges (e.g. house numbers from one segment to the next).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocoding
Reverse geocoding uses geographic coordinates to find a description of the location, most typically a postal address or place name. A geocoder is a piece of software or a (web) service that implements a geocoding process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocoding
From simple data analysis to business and customer management to distribution techniques, there is a wide range of applications for which geocoding can be used. With geocoded addresses, you can spatially display the address locations and recognize patterns within the information.
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/0025/002500000001000000.htm
Customer data management. Geocoding acts as a crucial part of customer data management. Nearly every organization maintains address information for each customer or client. This is usually in tabular format, containing the customer name, address, buying habits, and any other information you have collected.
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/0025/002500000001000000.htm
what is geocoding
Geocoding is the process of transforming a description of a location such as a pair of coordinates, an address, or a name of a place to a location on the earth's surface. Geocoding is the process of transforming a description of a location, such as a pair of coordinates, an address, or a name of a place, to a location on the earth's surface.