When customers are using our address verification capabilities via a Web service API within their applications and Web sites, they often ask what the difference is between an "address validation" and a "delivery point validation."
The ability to determine both exists within our product offering, but there is often confusion concerning the difference between the two and where and why the distinctions are useful. So let me try to explain.
In the case of "address validation" and whether or not an address is "valid", this refers to the CASS-certification-related style of determining the validity of an address according to the United States Postal Service master database (typically employed to gain postal discounts). However, this particular database only contains ranges of valid addresses for a given zip+4 location rather than a listing of actual physical addresses.
In other words, if you are trying to validate an address of "500 Broad Street, Anywhere, USA 12345", the database will contain entries of the ranges of that street in that particular city, and if the address to be validated falls within that range of valid street numbers, an address will be considered valid. This is without consideration as to whether or not that specific address physically exists and mail can be delivered to it. There could be a "490" Broad Street, a "496", and then a "504", but no "500". However, because it falls within a valid range, it will be returned as "valid."
This is where "delivery point validation" comes in (also known as DPV). During the address validation process, if the DPV flag is set to Y (because it exists in the DPV database), then this means that this particular address does indeed physically exist and mail can be delivered to it. This is a more granular indicator.
The ability to determine both exists within our product offering, but there is often confusion concerning the difference between the two and where and why the distinctions are useful. So let me try to explain.
In the case of "address validation" and whether or not an address is "valid", this refers to the CASS-certification-related style of determining the validity of an address according to the United States Postal Service master database (typically employed to gain postal discounts). However, this particular database only contains ranges of valid addresses for a given zip+4 location rather than a listing of actual physical addresses.
In other words, if you are trying to validate an address of "500 Broad Street, Anywhere, USA 12345", the database will contain entries of the ranges of that street in that particular city, and if the address to be validated falls within that range of valid street numbers, an address will be considered valid. This is without consideration as to whether or not that specific address physically exists and mail can be delivered to it. There could be a "490" Broad Street, a "496", and then a "504", but no "500". However, because it falls within a valid range, it will be returned as "valid."
This is where "delivery point validation" comes in (also known as DPV). During the address validation process, if the DPV flag is set to Y (because it exists in the DPV database), then this means that this particular address does indeed physically exist and mail can be delivered to it. This is a more granular indicator.
Here is an example of the two approaches. In the first, "500 Broad Street" would be determined a valid address:
In the second, the DPV indicator for this particular address would be returned as "N" since the address does not exist within the delivery point database:
seems to me that DPV is more accurate than address validation and is useful to send mails to the right place
Posted by: palash | February 26, 2010 at 05:17 AM