Rural Areas, Multi Language, Shambolic Addressing

This topic contains 5 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by  Guust 7 years, 6 months ago.

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  • #289755

    Nick Gibbs
    Free User
    Post count: 2

    I am working with the free version, I know i will want the full version if i can get my head around some issues over addressing. I could buy it and request a refund if it doesn’t work as i need, but seemed to make more sense to ask here first.
    In my home U.K., and I am sure it is the same in the U.S., an address is an address. Everyone knows what theirs is, including the postman. Seems obvious. But my website is in Ibiza, and here things just do not work that way. Our addressing is shambolic, and that is one of the main reasons i think the geo directory will be perfect at a user level, I love the functionality and hope I can find workarounds.
    1. Default location.
    The island is the island, it doesn’t really have a city as such. There is one of 5 small towns, and it is called Ibiza Town. Setting the default location recognised that Ibiza Town location. I then reset it by dragging the pin to the geographical centre of the island. I set the search radius to 1000 – way more than needed to cover the whole island.
    2. Multi language addressing.
    The official language of the island, and most reliable in using google maps, is Catalan. However the vast majority of businesses, and the majority of people, use Spanish (trad castellano). There is also some use of English placenames in common use.
    3. Shambolic addressing.
    Compounding the multi-language issue, addressing is far from a fine science here. Many locations simply do not have postal addresses, I know that sounds mad, but they don’t. Many people rely on post office boxes and ‘send to’ addresses.
    They long and short of all this is that in creating places (and in future events), what we and i am sure people creating listings would do is enter broad details, i.e. the closest town or village, and then refine the listing dragging the pin.
    I have used this approach importing places, but when attempting to drag the pin just get multiple pop ups (actually really annoying, any movement of the pin requires clearing 10 to 20 of them) stating ‘select address in Ibiza City’.
    Some of our issues may be unique, but I am sure people are running the directory in rural areas covering perhaps a few small towns instead of one named city?
    Also is there any functionality in the various add ons that allow a user to override an address not found and select location with a pin?
    Thanks for any help and thoughts.

    #289758

    Paolo
    Site Admin
    Post count: 31206

    Hi,

    1) This will not work. GD core only works for 1 single city, town or village. Ibiza is composed of many of them and if you to submit listings in more than 1 you must install the Location Manager add-on.

    2) by default you can use one language, but GD is also compatible with WPML that allows to create multilingual websites with WordPress. You can do it in all 3 languages if you want.

    3) That’s the right approach when addresses are not 100% clear for Google Maps. You can drag the marker or even only enter lat and lon coordinates (if you have them).

    The problem of setting location with the pin that you see right now, comes from not having the Location manager installed.

    Thanks

    #289817

    Nick Gibbs
    Free User
    Post count: 2

    Thanks for the very quick reply.
    1) So using the add on, i would have to enter each town and village as a separate area? How does it deal with the rural areas in between?
    2) it isnt a case of which language to set it up in, the point is that people use all 3 – but anyway that might not be an issue because of …
    3) i just watched the location manager video. it talks of an example in british virgin islands where every area was set up manually because of similar problems. so in that context i could set up a manual default location (centre of ibiza) manual country (ibiza), regions, (the 5 municipalities of ibiza) and cities (the main towns)? then using the pin approach to refine the exact location? that could work. does overriding google maps and setting it up manually in this way have any seo consequence?
    Thanks

    #289926

    Guust
    Moderator
    Post count: 29970

    1) Every rural area in between is still part of a municipality, see also https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/definitions/#location

    3) The British Virgin Island example is only because Google API problems. Ibiza does not have those problems, the system will classify every spot of Ibiza quite correct.
    The main problems with not using the automated system is that you will need to classify every listing manually, and user added listing will still use the Google API location, so you end up with duplicate locations and visitors not being able to find listings.

    #299013

    Nick Gibbs
    Free User
    Post count: 2

    OK thanks Guust – Got it – looks great

    #299059

    Guust
    Moderator
    Post count: 29970

    You’re welcome 🙂

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