Alex Rollin

The page I linked is their search page, for tripadvisor, not the one you link which is more like a location page or an archive page, which does have sorting. The Tripadvisor search page does not have sorting.
Neither did V1.

To promote featured listings on the search page you can add a GD Listings element and filter to featured.

It accepts HTML so you can add markup, but, might be better to target it with some css on the display side.

Please post all your site details so the developers can take a look:

WPAdmin
FTP
DB

That is the BuddyPress list of members.
You can hide it with CSS
https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/customizing-your-style/

The FTP is not working.
Please validate all the access details and repost:
WordPress Administrator Account Credentials
WP Admin Login URL:
Username:
Password:

SFTP / FTP Credentials
Host URL:
Port:
Username:
Password:

IN search is different than NEAR search, and GD does both. if you don’t click the autocompleter you will get NEAR results. To get all results in a radius do a NEAR search like “manahattan” without clicking on the autocomplete options.

This is out now, let us know how it goes.

1. See, no sorting options:
Examples:

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Vegan+Restaurants+Downtown&find_loc=Guadalajara%2C+Jalisco%2C+Mexico&ns=1

Trip Advisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Search?redirect&uiOrigin&ssrc=e&pid=3826&searchSessionId=06F922C26FC15A02562A3AA5D34A56151536250587122ssid&supportedSearchTypes=find_near_stand_alone_query&searchNearby&geo&q=vegan&enableNearPage=true&social_typeahead_2018_feature=true&returnTo=__2F__Restaurants&startTime&sid=06F922C26FC15A02562A3AA5D34A56151536250611546

2. That would be a customization for which you could contact an expert. https://geodirectoryexperts.com/