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February-2020 Release Notes

almost 5 years ago by Ryan Fox Squire

Has anyone wondered that if Punxsutawney Phil had a decent map of his surrounding POI, then he would never be surprised by his shadow? We've reached out to the groundhog to offer our help, and we look forward to adding his logo to our webpage. 🐻 🌄

Welcome to the February-2020 Places release notes (v2020-01-30/1580378546) shipped 2020-02-06.

Highlights

  • This month SG Places has 6,085,498 points-of-interest.
  • This month SG Patterns has 1,191,216,906 visits from 47,959,690 visitors (up + 117,938,268 visits, + 7,382,593 visitors from last month!). Make sure to take advantage of the Panel Overview Data files to account for changes in overall sample size.
  • 25 new brands, such as A&W (Canada) (aw.ca), SG_BRAND_862f8dbbfb698679) with 989 CA places.

Table of Contents:

Core Places and Brands

Enhancements - Core Places and Brands

  • Last month SG Places had 6,094,106 points-of-interest. This month SG Places has 6,085,498 points-of-interest (net -8,608 places). These are 5,410,707 US Places and 674,791 CA places.

  • We've added net 25 new brands 🎊
    New Brands Include...

    • A&W (Canada) (aw.ca), SG_BRAND_862f8dbbfb698679) with 0 US and 989 CA places.
    • Howard Johnson (HoJo) (wyndhamhotels.com/hojo), SG_BRAND_4f7df55683db6c787ce4492327c22ef9) with 172 US and 0 CA places.
    • American Deli (americandeli.com), SG_BRAND_66359aed65b2ca75) with 166 US and 0 CA places.
    • Mama Deluca's (mamadelucaspizza.com), SG_BRAND_7ede92e0120743d7) with 144 US and 6 CA places.
    • Tide Dry Cleaners (tidedrycleaners.com), SG_BRAND_527215696df19ae1) with 141 US and 0 CA places.
    • Busey (busey.com), SG_BRAND_3e5cddad8f14e7c1) with 79 US and 0 CA places.
    • Frederic Malle (fredericmalle.com), SG_BRAND_6240cf4952b2f042) with 50 US and 9 CA places.
    • High's (highsstores.com), SG_BRAND_dcd331cebf10f17f) with 49 US and 0 CA places.
    • Brunello Cucinelli (brunellocucinelli.com), SG_BRAND_e493c51ea313d2d2) with 24 US and 9 CA places.
    • Dicks Wings and Grill (dickswingsandgrill.com), SG_BRAND_ddce6a8b5fc27a9) with 21 US and 0 CA places.
    • And 15 more!! 📈

  • Brands with Special Characters

    • Some brands have special characters. Historically, SafeGraph Places dropped special characters from ALL POI. Now, branded POI will retain their special characters (dash, parenthesis, dollar sign, accent, exclamation mark, comma, period etc). We hope this will improve the human-readability of many POI. Here are some examples:
    • dash -: previously Chick Fil A now Chick-Fil-A 🐔
    • parentheses (: previously QFC Quality Food Centers, now QFC (Quality Food Centers)
    • dollar sign $: previously Fitness For 10 now Fitness For $10
    • accent è: previously Creme de la Creme now Crème de la Crème 🐄
    • exclamation point !: previously Zoup now Zoup! 🍜
    • period .: previously LL Bean now L.L.Bean 👕
    • These changes affect the exact name string for over 230 SafeGraph brands, and you are encouraged to use the SafeGraph_Brand_ID to maintain stability between releases.

  • Improved accuracy for high-impact categories like Cannabis Dispensaries, Golf Courses and Apartment buildings.

    • Cannabis/Dispensary POI Additions (424210). Net POI count change: US: 1268 CA: 584. Bug: Updated and better sourcing for more accurate POI counts. This is a growing category, get it? 🌿
    • Golf Courses. Net POI count change: US: 9218 CA: 0. Bug: New sourcing for more complete coverage in US (CA improvements coming next month). ⛳
    • Apartment Buildings. Net POI count change: US: -4457 CA: 0. Bug: Invalid places per Safegraph definition (and most were incorrectly categorized as NAICS 522110 Depoitory Credit Intermediation, Commercial Banking)

Bug Fixes and Known Issues - Core Places and Brands

  • We found some errors involving which POI were being labeled with certain Brands. Sometimes this was over-labeling (i.e., we were creating branded POI incorrectly at some locations). These fixes resulted in significant decreases in the total number of POI for those affected brands, but the new count is correct. Other times we were under-labeling (i.e., we were missing POI from some brands), and fixing results in increasing the total number of POI for those brands. For transparency we'd like to list some of these fixes as examples in no particular order.

  • Hampton (SG_BRAND_b6766b490c59a423e6011e11abb0dfba). Net POI count change: US: 1082 CA: 58. Bug: Better sourcing for more complete coverage (including addition of Canada which previously was wholly omitted)

  • Fulton Bank (SG_BRAND_19deeb23f9343164c8352e0672688d37). Net POI count change: US: 139 CA: 0. Bug: Better sourcing for more complete coverage (Lafayette Ambassador bank locations now correctly merged into Fulton Ban brand)

  • Cambria Suites (SG_BRAND_6560b7e58454953e6059e3105aac32ac). Net POI count change: US: 35 CA: 0. Bug: (Choice Hotels brand) Better sourcing for more complete coverage of US.

  • Rodeway Inn (SG_BRAND_61f9ea58114ff6510327c10141b22cd1). Net POI count change: US: 34 CA: 0. Bug: (Choice Hotels brand) Better sourcing for more complete coverage of US.

  • Comfort Inn (SG_BRAND_004070295ea36aacb87aa0c8b643303c). Net POI count change: US: 14 CA: 40. Bug: (Choice Hotels brand) Better sourcing for more complete coverage of US & CA.

  • Quality Inn (SG_BRAND_651e8ed61dd14af7a20c84019dc47d2b). Net POI count change: US: 41 CA: -94. Bug: (Choice Hotels brand) Better sourcing for more complete coverage of US. CA included other Choice Hotel children

  • Clarion (SG_BRAND_85858a492d6aafd617f26f8998de6a71). Net POI count change: US: 30 CA: -184. Bug: (Choice Hotels brand) Better sourcing for more complete coverage of US. CA included other Choice Hotel children

  • Sleep Inn (SG_BRAND_1c20cb37a43a5c4eb19eb019b5524b50). Net POI count change: US: 41 CA: -188. Bug: (Choice Hotels brand) Better sourcing for more complete coverage of US. CA included other Choice Hotel children

  • Comfort Suites (SG_BRAND_7d6d5ffb4cbf34a3658e52d4ec66f2e0). Net POI count change: US: 11 CA: -187. Bug: (Choice Hotels brand) Better sourcing for more complete coverage of US. CA included other Choice Hotel children

  • MainStay Suites (SG_BRAND_c123f4bfa30e571b20f37887488c5309). Net POI count change: US: - CA: -190. Bug: (Choice Hotels brand) CA included only other Choice Hotel children (none were actually Mainstay)

  • Gap (SG_BRAND_59dcabd7cd2395a2). Net POI count change: US: 10 CA: -85. Bug: Small differences in address b/w Gap & Gap Kids at the same locations in Canada, e.g., "1200 St Laurent Boulevard vs. 1200 St Laurent Boul" led to accidental duplication of Gap locations.

  • Caribou Coffee (SG_BRAND_7303ca634fe70d6fb5aa008ecc384e9b). Net POI count change: US: -187 CA: 0. Bug: Accidentally double counted some locations b/c of slightly different addresses.

  • Abercrombie (SG_BRAND_7cced0ecbfbf09fc). Net POI count change: US: 19 CA: 9. Bug: Added Canada locations (0 in CA last release)

  • Famous Hair (SG_BRAND_aeab866d007f06cf). Net POI count change: US: -63 CA: 0. Bug: Some stores closed, others were incorrectly labeled as Famous Hair when they were another Signature Style child brands.

  • KFC (SG_BRAND_75e52dcc790fbad91ae83227c0fb6e2f). Net POI count change: US: -6 CA: -66. Bug: Canada duplicates b/c of slightly different cities from competing sources (e.g. "St John" versus "ST. JOHN\U0027S")

  • Castrol Premium Lube Express (SG_BRAND_2162647748ee0782b2017f0e049fc9fe). Net POI count change: US: - CA: -189. Bug: This is only a distribuor and does not actually have branded locations. Does not meet criteria fo status as a SafeGraph Brand so it is now removed.

  • Subway (SG_BRAND_de80593878cb1673c62a7f338dc7e4e1). Net POI count change: US: -939 CA: 52. Bug: Better sourcing for more accurate reflection of current world. Note: losing 900+ seems like a lot; but this is only a 4% deviance in the total count of Subways in North America.

  • Carter's (SG_BRAND_e84600785db54c257448cd6b0e5343cb). Net POI count change: US: -175 CA: 0. Bug: Accidentally included child brand OshKosh

  • Do It Best (SG_BRAND_379e13a2bb6f9fffccb9f2145bc860dd). Net POI count change: US: -92 CA: 0. Bug: Accidentally included distributor with similar name (Taylor's Do It Center)

  • LifeWay Christian Stores (SG_BRAND_7c1d72d709c477e74347f2e8a52229d5). Net POI count change: US: -130 CA: 0. Bug: Closed all stores end of 2019.

  • Avada Audiology and Hearing Care (SG_BRAND_bbc63931eecb11a72f4533612b19a8ce). Net POI count change: US: -145 CA: 0. Bug: Duplicates with Hearling Life brand.

  • A'GACI (SG_BRAND_a1fce9b2678cec84c7a555d3f2e0754d). Net POI count change: US: -47 CA: 0. Bug: Closed all locations at end of Aug 2019 but we still had some of their POI

  • Avenue (SG_BRAND_1dc37a5030f45641). Net POI count change: US: -256 CA: 0. Bug: Closed all locations at end of Aug 2019 but we still had some of their POI

  • Charming Charlie (SG_BRAND_278a3e38d55b55ac21d4b8e252041b16). Net POI count change: US: -262 CA: 0. Bug: Closed all stores in Oct 2019

  • Dressbarn (SG_BRAND_1e1a600b8e0df14754dae21a44ba3dae). Net POI count change: US: -532 CA: 0. Bug: Closed all stores end of 2019

  • Crabtree & Evelyn (SG_BRAND_e3b134120f0b06bee9b741faee9930f4). Net POI count change: US: -583 CA: 0. Bug: Closed all stores in Jan 2019. All US POI are removed.

  • RCC Western (SG_BRAND_0d02c98d12d8bb97f08ccd5443e77369). Net POI count change: US: -246 CA: 0. Bug: Now correctly merged with Boot Barn (SG_BRAND_07e8ec336a446041019b1f98c594d1e5) to avoid duplicates.

  • Better filtering of erroneous non-branded POI based on dangling propositions. Net POI count change: US: -2316 CA: 0. Bug: Accidentally including some POI with dangling propositions (e.g., "by", "of", etc). Example POI removed: "Grays Harbor County of"

  • Bad SGPID Churn -- Bad sgpid churn are undesired failures to maintain a consistent safegraph_place_id (sgpid) between releases (see discussion in March 2019 release). We internally track and estimate our performance in this domain and share these numbers in our release notes for maximum transparency. In this release:

    • We dropped 206,183 sgpids (30,791 branded and 175,392 non-branded).
    • We added 197,575 sgpids (38,458 branded and 159,117 non-branded).
    • Note: Some percent of these are true openings and closings (or new brands); the remainder are bad sgpid churn. We are continuing to work on better metrics to distinguish these cases.

  • Category Fill Rate We monitor category fill rate with 3 metrics: (1) category fill rate across the entire dataset, (2) category fill rate for branded POI, (3) category fill rate in the brand_info file (brand-level categories). We want all of these numbers to be 100%.

    • (1) All POI category fill rate. Last month 96.3%. This month 98.9%. 📈
    • (2) Branded POI category fill rate. Last month 100%. This month 100% 💯
    • (3) Brand-level category fill rate (brand_info file). Last month 100%. This month 100%. 💯

Geometry

Enhancements - Geometry

  • Improved and additional cartography and polygons. New or improved polygon geometries for ~ 9,300 POI in US and CA. In addition to our normal focus on improving our polygon accuracy for all branded POI, we also improved polygon accuracy for many golf courses. :diamond-shape: ⛳

Bug Fixes and Known Issues - Geometry

  • Centroid-Radius Polygons -- As discussed in March 2019 release notes. We internally track centroid-radius polygons vs precise polygons and strive for 100% precise polygons. You can measure this yourself using the is_synthetic column. This release, we've increased to 94.7% precise polygons (from 93.7% last month). Here is how we are tracking on that metric over recent releases: Centroid-Radius Polygon Tracking.
  • Percent polygon_class = OWNED (as described in Oct 2019 release notes. We examine polygon_class for all safegraph_place_id that are both (i) branded and (ii) do NOT have a parent_safegraph_place_id; we call this group "branded, no-parent". We want 100% of "branded, no-parent" POI to have polygon_class = OWNED_POLYGON. Last month, the percent OWNED polygons for branded, no-parent was 76.11%. This month it is 77.37%. 👍 We continue to work on this. Here is how we are tracking on this metric in recent releases: OWNED vs SHARED Polygons in SafeGraph Places Release History.

Patterns

Enhancements - Patterns

  • In last month's delivery SG Patterns had 3,714,581 points-of-interest (US only). This month SG Patterns has 3,773,394 points-of-interest (US only) (net + 58,813 places) . 📈
  • Last month SG Patterns had 1,073,278,638 visits from 40,577,097 visitors. This month SG Patterns has 1,191,216,906 visits from 47,959,690 visitors (delta + 117,938,268 visits, + 7,382,593 visitors). 

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p.s. **[SafeGraph Core Places & Geometry is now available in Canada](https://docs.safegraph.com/changelog/october-2019-release-notes#section-canada-places-version-1-0-available-for-core-places-and-geometry-in-october-release)**