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March-2020 Release Notes

over 4 years ago by Ryan Fox Squire

Happy leap year! At SafeGraph, we used the extra 24 hours on Feb 29th to make this release extra special. We hope you notice! 💯 😀 ❄️

Welcome to the March-2020 Places release notes (v2020-02-25/1582588864) shipped 2020-03-06.

Highlights

  • Massive increase in OWNED polygon precision and coverage. This month the percent OWNED polygons for branded, no-parent (i.e., important POI with non-shared polygons) went up from 77.4% to 84.1% 📈 🔲
  • 103 new brands, such as the Canada-only brand CIBC (cibc.com), SG_BRAND_6723e15b38254560) with 1017 CA places.

Table of Contents:

Core Places and Brands

Enhancements - Core Places and Brands

  • We have improved our ability to detect duplicate and closed locations within the places dataset. This means our total places count has seen a net decrease in the March release. Last month, SG Places had 6,085,498 points-of-interest. This month SG Places has 6,018,280 points-of-interest (net -67,218 places). These are - 17,547 US Places and - 49,671 CA places.
  • We've added net 103 new brands including some Canada-only brands🎊
    New Brands Include...
    • Security National Bank (securitynationalbank.com), SG_BRAND_322db8903177df56) with 18 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Park National Family of Community Banks.
    • Second National Bank Ohio (secondnational.com), SG_BRAND_6cca75c762a345e5) with 7 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Park National Family of Community Banks.
    • United Bank Ohio (unitedbankohio.com), SG_BRAND_2b6054362116995b) with 6 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Park National Family of Community Banks.
    • NewDominion Bank (newdominionbank.com), SG_BRAND_3cd74d76cdc8a690) with 2 US and 0 CA places. Parent = Park National Family of Community Banks.
    • CIBC (cibc.com), SG_BRAND_6723e15b38254560) with 0 US and 1017 CA places. Canada-only brand (no locations in the US).
    • Robin's (robinsdonuts.com), SG_BRAND_90106d9ec0a3850) with 0 US and 151 CA places. Canada-only brand (no locations in the US).
    • Rachelle-Bery (rachellebery.ca), SG_BRAND_6085a08ea13936bb) with 0 US and 64 CA places. Canada-only brand (no locations in the US).
    • New York Fries (newyorkfries.com), SG_BRAND_cec9553e6d836eb0) with 0 US and 9 CA places. Canada-only brand (no locations in the US).
    • WeWork (wework.com), SG_BRAND_7c3b72a5a18806ec) with 303 US and 21 CA places.
    • iLoveKickboxing (ilovekickboxing.com), SG_BRAND_6bc74d6296de6000) with 238 US and 4 CA places.
    • Points Tire & Auto Service (pointstire.com), SG_BRAND_1757565a9045d17c) with 140 US and 0 CA places.
    • Snap Kitchen (snapkitchen.com), SG_BRAND_44f1227687bb042f) with 78 US and 0 CA places.
    • and 91 more!!

Bug Fixes and Known Issues - Core Places and Brands

  • We found some errors involving the labeling of POI 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 the fix 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.

    • Chico's (SG_BRAND_d8cb9790f23d976415364377d1e0f868). Bug: Duplicates w/ Chicos Off The Rack.

    • AT&T (SG_BRAND_5deb800ce9500e72e355137ab8b48fb6). Bug: Duplicates b/c of old domains (e.g., attexperience.com).

    • Michael Kors (SG_BRAND_89896b299191a09f8ffde872a296da04). Bug: Duplicates in Canada.

    • Levi Strauss & Co. (SG_BRAND_f010ccce6197e56866c8c6e4f7adec39). Bug: Duplicates w/ locations.levis.com.

    • Randstad (SG_BRAND_4f9edafdca8658f8aba5a066069fc022). Bug: Duplicates w/ ranstandusa.com.

    • Sears (SG_BRAND_e9301d5c735afc317688baa02d272807). Bug: Accidentally ignoring some store closures.

    • Rogy's Learning Place (SG_BRAND_83b48dda8302d3652a572c03a89fde8d). Bug: Accidentally included affiliate centers (e.g., Winwood Children's Centers).

    • Portrait Innovations (SG_BRAND_ec24f87328fa68618c63c7e473ec2516). Bug: This brand closed in mid-January 2020.

    • 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizzeria (SG_BRAND_70be6421bf9bd7b8c5bd2219c2351bac). Bug: Problem with our ingestion of an older out-of-date file.

    • Crazy 8 (SG_BRAND_345be7218d41f7b5b35d92edee4a5532). Bug: This brand was bought by Children's Place (some duplicates, some closed stores).

    • Fresh (SG_BRAND_fe8965a9748c1bc48af1711be837124e). Bug: Accidentally included some retailers that carried Fresh beauty products but not branded as Fresh Beauty products.

    • Crabtree & Evelyn (SG_BRAND_e3b134120f0b06bee9b741faee9930f4). Bug: Corrected due to store closures.

    • Hilton International (SG_BRAND_20a9e31c88c5de210b9ae0bee5faf4f3). Bug: Accidentally included Hilton children in Canada.

    • LOFT Outlet (SG_BRAND_6d7555d934650526). Bug: Previously included under Loft, now we categorize as a separate child brand.

    • 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 93,471 sgpids (12,081 branded and 81,390 non-branded).
      • We added 26,253 sgpids (8,996 branded and 17,257 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 98.9%. This month 98.8%.

  • (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

  • 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.

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 held steady at 94.8% precise polygons (94.7% last month).
    • Here is how we are tracking on that metric over recent releases: Centroid-Radius Polygon Tracking.

Patterns

Enhancements - Patterns

  • In last month's delivery SG Patterns had 3,773,394 points-of-interest (US only). This month SG Patterns has 3,689,695 points-of-interest (US only) (net - 83,699 places) . See Core & Brand - Enhancements for more info on why we have fewer POI in this release.
  • Last month SG Patterns had 1,191,216,906 visits from 47,959,690 visitors. This month SG Patterns has 1,044,548,923 visits from 46,843,490 visitors (delta -146,667,983 visits, -1,116,200 visitors). 

Also check out these new ways to get SafeGraph data: 
  * Need some extra data on other SafeGraph products? Check out the [SafeGraph Data Bar.](https://shop.safegraph.com/) 
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  * Are you an Esri or ArcGIS user? Check out our FREE data [SafeGraph Places in the Esri Marketplace](https://marketplace.arcgis.com/listing.html?id=3425348e4bee4059af2b353e52df43c2) and enjoy [SafeGraph Places in Esri Basemaps](https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-living-atlas/mapping/new-places-in-esri-vector-basemaps/). 
  * Or just drop us a line! Your data needs are our data delights!

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)**