How do I get more locations?

Question

I am trying to get some locations in New York using FourSquare API using the following API call:

https://api.foursquare.com/v2/venues/search?ll=40.7,-74&limit=50

What I don't understand is that if the call imposes a limit of 50 search results (which is the maximum), how can I get more locations? When using Facebook API, the results being returned were random so I could issue multiple calls to get more results but FourSquare seems to be returning the same result set. Is there a good way to get more locations?

EDIT:

Ok. So there was a comment saying that I could be breaking a contractual agreement and I am not sure why this would be the case. I would gladly accept a reasoning for this. My doubt is this: Let us say that hypothetically, the location I am searching for is not in the 50 results returned? In that case, shouldn't there be a pagination mechanism somewhere?

Answer 1

The API docs here can help.

Foursquare searching is very closely linked to the location 'point' (the 'll' param on the query) that you provide. The simple answer is that to find more venues within a given area, you need to simply query again with a different location 'point' within that area.

Two queries, both at points close to one another:

https://api.foursquare.com/v2/venues/search?ll=40.700,-74.000&limit=50
https://api.foursquare.com/v2/venues/search?ll=40.705,-74.005&limit=50

will get you two different sets of venues (that may overlap, depending on how close the points are).

The default intent for the search method is 'checkin', which will return the 50 most popular locations closest to that point. If instead you want to look at all the venues within an area, you can use the 'browse' intent. This takes either a 'radius' parameter, in which case it returns venues inside a circle around the given point with the given radius, or it takes two coordinates representing the 'sw' and 'ne' corners of a rectangle. So, you could do:

https://api.foursquare.com/v2/venues/search?ll=40.705,-74.005&limit=50&intent=browse&radius=50

which will give you 50 venues within the 50m circle around that point. A smaller radius will reduce the number of venues returned. So, by varying the radius and the point at which you search (or the size and position of the rectangle described by the 'sw' and 'ne' parameters), you can get more venues returned.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

The current API limits results to 50. You should try altering your coordinates to be more precise to avoid not finding your venue.

Pagination would be nice but 50 is a lot of venues for a search.