cURL Geocode OVER_QUERY_LIMIT - php

Question

I have a problem with google's geocoding api:
I have an address which should be converted to latitude and longitude by google geocoding api using cURL. You will see my code below. It worked fine, however suddenly it stopped working and I got an "OVER_QUERY_LIMIT" answer. I looked it up and it normally happens if api is requested more than 2500 times a day. This is impossible, because my website is just upon finishing and has about 20-40 geocode requests per day.
So what is really the problem that "OVER_QUERY_LIMIT" occurs? Is something wrong with my code that somehow google blocks it?!
ini_set('allow_url_fopen', true);
$CookiePath = 'mycookiepath/geocookie.txt';
$userAgent = "mysite.com";
$ListURLRoot = "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json";
$ListURLSuffix = '&sensor=false';
$Curl_Obj = curl_init(); // Setup cURL
curl_setopt($Curl_Obj, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $CookiePath);
curl_setopt($Curl_Obj, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $userAgent);
curl_setopt($Curl_Obj, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($Curl_Obj, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, TRUE);
curl_setopt($Curl_Obj, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 0);
curl_setopt($Curl_Obj, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($Curl_Obj, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 30);
curl_setopt($Curl_Obj, CURLOPT_POST, 0);
$stAddr = str_replace(' ','+', $ast);
$City = str_replace(' ','+', $ac);
$address = "$stAddr,+$City,+{$aco},+{$ap}";
$address = str_replace(' ', '+', $address);
$ListURL = "{$ListURLRoot}?address=$address$ListURLSuffix";
curl_setopt ($Curl_Obj, CURLOPT_URL, $ListURL);
$output = curl_exec ($Curl_Obj);
GetLocation($output);
function GetLocation($output) {
global $db_connect;
$Loc = json_decode($output, true);
if(isset($Loc)) {
$i = 1;
while ($Loc['status']=="OVER_QUERY_LIMIT") {
if ($i > 14) {
echo "Geocode failed!";
exit();
}
sleep(1);
$i++;
}
if(isset($Loc['status']) && stristr($Loc['status'], 'OK')) {
if(isset($Loc['results'][0]['geometry']['location'])) {
$Lat = $Loc['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lat'];
$Lng = $Loc['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lng'];
}
}
else {
error_log($Loc['status'], 0);
echo "Unknown error occured!";
exit();
}
}
}
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Mostly it's a Google problem. Try to avoid server side geocodeing. Instead use a client side javascript solver.