Search not working

This topic contains 11 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by  Alex Rollin 6 years, 11 months ago.

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  • #408219

    Neshla Avey
    Expired Member
    Post count: 13

    We are having multiple problems finding Place listings and not sure what we are doing wrong. Can you advise?

    We have added the ‘GD > Search’ widget to the ‘GD Home Top Section’ area of the home page.

    When we search using the ‘GD > Search’ widget at the top of the home page some listings cannot be found.

    An example is we have a number of people based in Ireland but when you type Ireland in the ‘Near’ box it only finds 3 listings. If we select ‘Ireland’ from the ‘Change Location’ on the menu it finds 10 listings.

    The GD team have a login account to our site.

    Thanks.

    #408220

    Neshla Avey
    Expired Member
    Post count: 13
    This reply has been marked as private.
    #408235

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    Hello!

    If you add the GD > Near Me Button widget, and a visitor clicks on that button, they will be taken to a page showing the listings within a set radius of their geolocation.
    To change this radius, go to GD > Advanced Search > GEOLOCATION SETTINGS section > Default Near Me miles limit (1-200) and change the setting there..

    Read more about search here:

    https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/gd-search/#search

    #408253

    Neshla Avey
    Expired Member
    Post count: 13
    This reply has been marked as private.
    #408324

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    Hello!

    Yes, that is because it is only searching the listings that are “Near” the user.

    You can disable that functionality GeoDirectory >> Advance Search and disable:

    1) If an option is selected, the autocompleter for Near is enabled.
    2) If this option is selected, users will not be auto geolocated on first load.
    3) If this option is selected, users will be asked if they with to be geolocated via a popup

    #408394

    Neshla Avey
    Expired Member
    Post count: 13

    We have disabled those options but still it does not find some listings.

    Also the ‘Change location’ isn’t working either. We select a city from the drop down list and it reports ‘No Records Found
    Sorry, no records were found. Please adjust your search criteria and try again.’

    Surely if a town is in the drop down list it means there are listings to display? There are but they are not being found.

    We just want to be able to put a town into the search field and be able to find listings in those towns. Eg find all the listings in Cobham, or Portsmouth or Ballywilliam or Devon. It doesn’t have to be near the person doing the search because they need to search the whole country.

    How do we do this? It just isn’t working and doesn’t find the listings.

    It’s very frustrating and really need help. There’s obviously a setting that isn’t set right, or something somewhere. Or perhaps it just isn’t meant to find listings all over the country?

    Are you saying it will only find listings near the person doing the search, rather than anywhere in the country?

    #408432

    Paolo
    Site Admin
    Post count: 31206

    Hi,

    when you select Devon from the location switcher you search IN ALL Devon, when you type Devon in the near field, you search near the center of Devon for a radius of X km. (default is 40). If there are no listings within that radius it will say : no record found.

    That X variable can be set in General > Search.

    Let me know if extending the radius it works as you want it.

    Thanks

    #408435

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    Hello!

    Search for Pamela in everywhere gets results, shows Pamela’s listing.

    If you have “Near Me” results turned on, then, yes, it will only return results near to the person doing the searching.

    For many directories just starting out, the answer is to A) add listings in a small territory and B) turn off ‘near’ features if there is a chance the search results will be empty. Further C) if you want to make sure visitors land on a Listing page (for a location or a category) then give them those links so they can click there.

    If, as you say, you want users to find something in a town, give them a link to the page for the town.

    In cases like yours, where you want to run a national directory, but don’t have many listings yet, or even if you do, the Near Me features are not really very helpful. Your users will get ‘more better’ results if they are always searching ‘everywhere’, at least more results like the kind they are expecting.

    #408465

    Neshla Avey
    Expired Member
    Post count: 13

    Hi Paolo and Alex,
    thank you for your response. We do not have “Near Me” switched on.

    We have 4 listings in Devon.
    When we select Devon from the location switcher it shows 4 of the listings (some of the time, other times it only shows 3 which is weird).

    When doing a search for Devon in the Near field no results are displayed at all, not even when a person sitting in Devon does a search for their own listing in Devon. That is how we found out there is a problem because people can’t find their own listings.

    The issue isn’t only for Devon we have other Regions and City’s where listings cannot be found. Some of them we have fixed by updating the address of the listing to more obvious mainstream towns which makes the listing owner unhappy.

    The ‘Default Near Me miles limit (1-200)’ is set to 200. I have also tried it set to blank and 0 and that doesn’t appear to make a difference. I am clearing cache each time just to be sure.

    As suggested by Alex, We do not have “Near Me” switched on because it is a worldwide directory and we need people to be able to find listings in other parts of the country, world even. For example, someone in Scotland might be searching for a listing in Southampton in England because they know someone is based in the Southampton area but wont necessarily know their name, so they will want to search for the city Southampton to find the listing. Or, someone sitting in the UK might search for a listing in Canada because they are going on holiday there.

    So as far as I can tell “Near Me” is switched off and none of those “Near Me” boxes are ticked under GeoDirectory >> Advance Search.

    I have disabled all of the “Near Me” options suggested by Alex earlier in the thread.

    There is obviously a setting (or a plugin) we have missed somewhere but I can’t work which one or why it won’t find those listings.

    We have a geo child theme and geo plugins installed with no modifications to php code. There are CSS changes made through GDF Options >>> Quick Code but no errors reported so don’t think that would affect it.

    Banging my head against a brick wall trying to get it to find the listings.

    #408556

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    Hello!

    I think that you are wanting to always have every search submitted to ‘everywhere’ as opposed to just ‘Devon UK’. When users search devon, they are seeing results for Devon USA (where there are no listings). GD was designed for a wide range of uses, but, if you don’t have a directory that is intensely filled with local listings in a single area, then some of the features may seem to be working against you. In the following response I will detail a recipe so that any search that is submitted is always searching ‘everywhere’.

    The feature of GD that is creating the confusion is that anytime a visitor goes/switches to a ‘location’ (like Devon) (just by visiting a page like mysite.com/plaes/uk/devon), then the visitor’s ‘location’ is now set (in a session variable) to be ‘devon’. If they make another search before returning to the main location page (‘mysite.com/location’) then they are ‘only’ searching within ‘devon’.

    So, if you want to make it more likely that your visitors are always searching ‘everywhere’, there are a couple things you can do.

    You can hide the Near search field that comes packaged with the Location Manager. That is the field on the right with the compass button. There is no way to remove this without customization, but you can hide it with CSS. Add the following to GD > Design > CSS

    
    
    
    .gd-search-input-wrapper.gd-search-field-near {
        display: none;
    }
    

    Now that the field is hidden, users will simply submit their search to ‘everywhere’ and find the listings returned by search, regardless of the location.

    Make sure to turn off geolocation and redirection. If geolocation is on, then thevisitor immediately gets their ‘location’ set, and their search will be submitted only to ‘devon’, if that is the closest city to their location.

    Next, become familiar with mysite.com/location
    When a visitor goes to this page, their location is reset to ‘everywhere’. If a user accidentally gets to a page like mysite.com/places/uk/devon, we know there next search on the home page will only search Devon … unless they go to the location page (mysite.com/location) and search there.

    The location page (/location) is a listing page, using the listing template, so, make sure you have the widgets there that you need to show your wide variety of listings. You can use the GD Popular Posts or GD Listings widget, moving them into the Listing page.

    Next, you can help steer visitors away from the location pages like mysite.com/places/uk/devon by removing links to those pages, and specifically not using the location switcher. If they never get geolocated, and never land on a location page like ‘devon’ then their searches will always submit to ‘everywhere’ and the expected results will be returned.

    To get ‘aggressive’ with this strategy you can also remove the links from the breadcrumbs so the visitor can’t click on the country/region/city with this CSS:

    
    
    
    .post-type-archive-gd_place .geodir-breadcrumb ul li {
        pointer-events: none;
    }
    

    Let us know how it goes

    Related Links
    https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/search-filters-overview/
    https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/multilocations/

    #408773

    Neshla Avey
    Expired Member
    Post count: 13

    Hi Alex,
    thank you for your response, it is helpful.

    We were unaware the centre of ‘everywhere’ is the USA. When users search for Devon, they are seeing results for Devon USA (where there are no listings). There are listings in Devon, UK.

    The majority of our users will be in the UK and many of the cities in the UK are also in the USA so this gives us a problem because it will always find the USA city rather than the UK city.

    As a temporary workaround, we have placed the wording ‘Postcode or Town+Country’ in the ‘Near’ field. The postcode search works well and the Town+Country search, eg Cobham+United Kingdom, appears to find the UK Cobham town, as opposed to the USA one.

    I will work my way through your suggestions and return next week.

    Thank you for taking the time to reply.

    #408792

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    Hello!

    should have mentioned the center of ‘everywhere’ is the lat/lon of your default location.

    Let us know how it goes!

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