Search bug

We have moved to a support ticketing system and our forums are now closed.

Open Support Ticket

Tagged: bug, search

Author

Posts
July 14, 2017 at 6:11 pm #387088

stillwater
Full Member

Post count: 44

Hello!

Our client has brought to attention a bug with search. Please see our site here http://stay-boutique.com/

When client inputs ‘California’ in the NEAR box and hits enter to search (doesn’t choose ‘California’ from the suggested drop down) there are no results.

There are definitely results for California in the system (hence when you select ‘California’ from the suggestion it shows them).

I cannot reproduce this for some other locations like New York (shows results if you choose suggestion AND if you just hit enter) but I get the same bug if I hit enter on ‘Colorado’ but I get results for Colorado if I choose it from the suggestion dropdown.

Thoughts?

July 15, 2017 at 12:27 am #387131

Guust
Moderator

Post count: 29970

There probably are no listings NEAR THE CENTER OF California.
Please review https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/gd-search/#near

Thanks

July 17, 2017 at 3:42 pm #387326

stillwater
Full Member

Post count: 44

Thank you!

Just curious, any plans in the future to include an IN search?

July 17, 2017 at 10:14 pm #387421

Paolo
Site Admin

Post count: 31206

With the advance search widget there is already. You need to wait for the autocompleter to show the result:

California (region) and select it. In that case it will search IN all california for a radius that you define in Advance Search settings.

Thanks

July 17, 2017 at 10:20 pm #387426

stillwater
Full Member

Post count: 44

Understood, and we do have autocompleter on, but I think the confusion is coming from users who simply type and hit enter/press the ‘search’ button without waiting for the autocomplete to load (which takes a few seconds).

Our client expressed confusion due to them typing and simply hitting enter, expecting the same result as if clicking on the autocompleted result.

My colleague and I think it’s a valid concern, because not all users will wait for autocomplete (some not knowing there is autocomplete, due to the delay), and then be presented with ‘no results’.

Any thoughts? Would you mind explaining why the location search box is ‘NEAR BY’ instead of ‘IN’ and the motivations behind making it that way? (or point me to an article I could read?). Perhaps it would help us/our client understand the system better.

July 17, 2017 at 11:22 pm #387436

Guust
Moderator

Post count: 29970

The search is designed to search within a radius of a particular location.
For example if I am on holiday in New York I may search for restaurants near the statue of Liberty. A search that returns all restaurants in New York would not be very useful.

But if I wanted all restaurants in New York I would browse to the New York page, using the location switcher.

See also https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/searching-and-browsing/

Thanks

July 18, 2017 at 9:40 am #387490

Stiofan O’Connor
Site Admin

Post count: 22956

Let me try and explain first and then i can answer any questions you have:
There are two types of location search
1. “IN” This will only list listings that are listed as IN this location, with this you can use other sort options as all it’s really doing is limiting the listings to that location only.
2. “NEAR” This type does not know/care if the location or place you are searching is in the DB, all it does is geolocated what you searched for to get a GPS position and then searches the DB for listings closest to the point, the limiting factor is the search radius, with this the only sort option is by distance to that point.

“IN” The only way to search IN is to either use the location switcher to change the location or to use the autocomplete and click the location when it comes up.

“NEAR” All you do is enter a location or a place etc

I hope this helps you understand, if you have any questions please ask.

Stiofan
Author

Posts