Why does searching by area name not work?

This topic contains 5 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by  Alex Rollin 5 years, 1 month ago.

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  • March 28, 2019 at 6:20 pm #476942

    Benjamin
    Full Member
    Post count: 67

    In our “Near” box, if someone types in ‘florida’, it acts like you’re searching for florida in the normal search box, instead of for regions that match the search term Florida. Why is this?
    It works if you wait for the dropdown to show ‘In: Florida, United States”, and then click that, but most people just type in their state and then press enter/search, not wait for a dropdown to show up or even click it if they do see it, because they don’t realize they have to in order for the Florida listings to show up.

    March 28, 2019 at 10:00 pm #477002

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    There are two kinds of searches.

    NEAR search will use the setting for the search radius, and search from the center point of ‘florida’ for listings that match the value in the ‘search for’ field.
    IN search will search listings IN Florida; this is the IN search you mention from the dropdown.

    Please see this one for more: https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/gd-search/

    March 29, 2019 at 2:41 pm #477131

    Benjamin
    Full Member
    Post count: 67

    How do we make IN searches as the default? Again, most people visiting our site are just typing in the name, and that doesn’t give results for everything that should be showing up.
    Even with setting the miles out farther for near searches to get better results, it’s not what we need to accomplish since in states like Texas it still won’t show everything if it’s too far out, and in little states it’s going to show things from other states too.

    March 30, 2019 at 2:04 am #477172

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    A consideration, IN searches require that the location be in the database first. If the visitors are going to be checking some well known locations, why not just give them a list of cities linked to location pages?

    IN searches require a selection from the dropdown, but we are considering what additional options to add for future versions. It isn’t possible right now without a customization but we will keep it in mind for future versions.

    April 1, 2019 at 7:58 pm #477372

    Benjamin
    Full Member
    Post count: 67

    Our database is both worldwide and rather large, and mostly people are not going to be physically visiting the locations listed, but rather getting something shipped from there, so they need a larger area view in this case.
    Even without this being the case though, I do think it’s a little misleading that a Near search for Florida would only search a portion of it? Without stating anywhere what the actual range is, this could make people think that there’s nothing else in Florida outside of those results.

    Thanks for the consideration! It’d be really helpful in our case, so I look forward to any updates on the search functions.

    April 1, 2019 at 9:01 pm #477378

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    Try setting the search radius to 200 miles, then?

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