the autocomplete is working and works well as it clears the featured listings widget at the top of my listing page when the featured listing is not from that area.

When you do a straight search without choosing from the dropdown it just shows all featured listings regardless of search area.

So can i force them to choose from the dropdown and not just accept freetext?

Thanks

I think you are talking about the SEARCH FOR field.
Do you mean an empty search when you say straight search?
Forcing them to choose them from the suggestion would not be a search, it would only ever return one listing. With customization it might be possible, but not for the moment.
See also https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/core-general/#individual which might assist with limiting search results.

Or maybe you are talking about the NEAR field.
That field is not intended for cities only, but for landmarks etc. This might explain better: https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/core-design/#how
So people might want to search NEAR the Eiffel tower, and not NEAR the center of Paris.
If they want to search IN Paris, then they can use the location switcher to filter down to Paris.

yes it was the Near field i wanted to force a known search for.

the reason was more for the featured listings widget than anything.

If i do a search for birmingham and choose the City option from the dropdown then it turns blue and returns the city location info.

it also clears the one featured listing i currently have which is in walsall.

if i just type in birmingham as free text and click search without choosing from the dropdown then the featured listing in walsall still shows. (seperate issue is that currently doing a free text search for birmingham doesnt actually return anything. it probably thinks im searching for birmingham AL)

do you have an alternative to controllign the featured listings display. as the whole business plan currently is to sell featured listings where they will show for their areas.
if people show for every search because people have not chosen the dropdown area then this wont work.

ANother solution might be to link to the /location/me page with the Near Me widget.

What i need to try and make sure i can do is sell featured listings.

So when someone is on the site and does a search the best featured listings show.

or the correct ones at least.

I would hope most people will ahve sharing of location switched on but as i cant guarantee that i was instead going to try and force known locations.

I would rathert not lose the search functionality. so i thought the best solution would be to have the searches forced. but the location/me page for sure works fine. as long as people are where they are searching.

If i want to check who is in london i will get featured listings for everywhere unless i type out the search and choose from the dropdown box, use the change location thingy, which isnt the quickest, or am in london and i use the near me button / page.

Can you think of any other solutions? perhaps geotargeting the featured widget every time thr free search is used to target the closest match? or set the location on searches as well as matched searches? Im sure that would be a sensible thing to do … to always have a location even if it is a free search. as the map obviously does find that location and hsows the results. but the page isnt aware oif it as it were. which is i think not quite right?

Your thoughts pls.

I think the solution is for the widget to be aware of the map point on the page it is on. not just on location pages but anytime a search is done on the map or the marker etc is moved.

lots of people search for tattoo artists a way away if they want a certain artist or a certain style which a studio specialises in. i need to amke surte i cater for this properly.

Anything else would be a customization. You can add it to the request list here:
https://wpgeodirectory.com/requests/
or list a job at https://wpgeodirectory.com/support/forum/geodirectory-jobs/