Search Query Results are Useless

First off, let me say that you guys have done a great job on 98% of this theme, which I consider commendable.

There are 2 issues that I feel that you must consider updating moving forward.

1. The Search Query results do not function properly, or shall I say use "illogical" logic or poor assumptions. Users should be able to enter data into one or both fields and search. Both fields needs to provide "Example Text" of what a visitor should enter (i.e. Italian Food...Chicago). What are the qualifiers for the first saerch field? (Category?Business Type? Keyword?) Secondly, it is not clear what should be entered into the second search query field either. Is it Location? if so, what is the query looking for?Street address? City? State? Postal Code? Country? Province? What is the theme using as the qualifier for these queries?

2. You guys have to make necessary updates to the differnt "Listing Packages". Free users shold not be able to display the exact same infromation and contact details (i.e. website, email, etc.) as a paid advertiser. Can't you just make the Free User a different custom post type and only allow for a limited amout of data (that the site owner could enable/disable in the admin) to display in the directory? Doing this vs. simply allowing paying members to get leads and non-paying member to not receive leads does not make good sense. Since you are allowing everyone to display their phone #, email address and website URL, a visitor can simply visit the free customer's website and contact or call them directly. Thge lead generation portion of the directory becomes less valuable if there is no differentiation and therefore the premium account more difficult to sell.

This is just my 2 cents.

 

i agree with the above entirely - fantastic theme already and these 2 improvements would make it a really powerful business generation tool

thanks guys

 

+1 on this post - both items

 

Thanks for the replies guys.....but no response from the ADMIN yet.

Come on guys, respond to this post and tell us that you are working on this or at least seriously considering it for the next update.

These are both serious "issues" with the current theme and it appears that they could be resolved fairly quickly.

 

I've been using this theme in a live environment for about 3 days now and I have to say I'm not impressed so far. Featured listings appear and disappear "randomly", there seems to be some serious lag when working with widgets and adjusting the layout. My main grievance is the featured listings option though. Free and Paid is essentially the same and so there's little incentive to pay. But what is really troubling me, and I'm actually thinking about killing this project and requesting a refund is the "uncertainty" of the data and those featured listings. I went home yesterday with 4 showing (and they're still tagged today in the dat) but today they're simply NOT showing on the front page anymore. Very disconcerting. It's never good when you can't trust the system ... and I will need to do so before I begin accepting payments from our clients. Like others have said - this is a very good theme, so close .... yet so far from complete.

 

Thanks for your suggestions and I do agree with your suggestions.

1. Right now the GeoCraft Theme uses the native Search Functionality and it sort results on the basis of recent listings rather than relevance that's the reason the wordpress search results are sometimes not upto the mark.

We created the Address Search Field for searching any text within the Address Field. For eg: If the Address is "1870 Beloit Ave Apartment, West Los Angeles, CA 90025". The Address search field can be used to search any string from the whole address amd will display results accordingly.

2. When we created the theme, we didn't think about this aspect to hide fields for the Free Listing Submitter. Its an interesting concept and I will see how I can make that thing in the update.

Thanks
Neeraj

 

Neeraj,

First, thank for your reply.

SEARCH FEATURE
While I can appreciate your response #1 above, reading it over and over just makes me even more confident that the search feature is truely useless as is. Here's why...Who uses a directory? Usually someone looking for something new, diffent or they are simply trying to see what is available in a certain geographic area. If you go to one of the largest business directories online; YellowPages (yp.com), you will see that they offer a similar search feature. Their fields are titles "What are you looking for?" near "City, State". They make it very clear what criteria a visitor should be searching for. They do no leave it up to chance by using non-descript icons (magnifying glass, map pin). If you enter Italian Restaurants near Chicago, IL you get 575 results that display in list view (both regular and "fetured"). Chicago is a city of over 3M people so this is a fairly broad search. If I alter the query to be Italian Restaurants near 60618 (zip code) I receive results that are based on proximity to the zip code that I entered.

Your statement "If the Address is "We created the Address Search Field for searching any text within the Address Field. For eg: If the Address is "1870 Beloit Ave Apartment, West Los Angeles, CA 90025". The Address search field can be used to search any string from the whole address amd will display results accordingly." is somewhat flawed by the fact that users will not have address data. They will only be able to enter small snippets of address data; street name, state, city or zip code (postal code). These are the only variables they will have available. So if I test your assumption on your 98london.com site, the results are not very good.

Here is an example:

Belgrave Medical Centre
21 Piccadilly
London W1J 0BH

If I follow your instructions based on this statement "We created the Address Search Field for searching any text within the Address Field.", then any part of the address field should be the seachable data that the site should return a result for.

1. First test is entering "Belgrave" into the first field (Search) - and the results were correct, Belgrave Medical Centre was the only result.
2. Second test was a search for the work "Medical", the query provided 3 results, one of which was Belgrave Medical Centre
3. Third test was a search for "Centre", the query provided several results, one of which was Belgrave Medical Centre.
4. Fourth test was for "21", the numeric portion of the address, the query provided several results, none of which were Belgrave Medical Centre and the results that did display did not seem to contain 21 in the address number.
5. Fifth test is for "Piccadilly", again, several results, none of which were Belgrave Medical Centre AND none of the results had Picadilly in the address field!
6. I did not search for "London"
7. Last search was for the postal code of "W1J 0BH", which I feel is possibly the most important search criteria required. Again, my results were terrible. No Belgrave Medical Centre and the results that did display did not contain the "W1J 0BH" search criteria.

So to summarize, the search feature is truely flawed and as it stands right now, totally useless for it's intended use. While the "Search" field does provide some results, the "Location or Address" Filed does not work at all. This is the basis for your entire theme. Without a capable, consistent, reliable search feature, no one can find keyword relevant or geo target listings and anyone selling "featured" listing is going to run into massive customer service issues and refunds.

You guys at Ink Themes really have no choice but to fix this immediately or refund all purchasers and go back to the drawing board.

FREE vs. PAID ACCOUNTS
I am sure that you guys are great designers and developers. It is apparent from your work that you are a very talented group.

I have been in web and software development for almost 20 years and one thing that I can tell you is that most development houses are run by designers turned coders or coders turned designers...they are rarely run by results driven business people with years and years of real world business experience. This is why sometimes you need the input of a third party to review your specs, features, functions, interface and philosophy of use.

It's a rookie mistake to think that paid and free should get the same listing details. Look at the hundreds of online directories, directory themes, php scripts, etc. and you will see that almost 100% of them offer a "limited" free account with multiple upgrade options. In addition, the upgraded options also receive preferential placement on the category and results pages. This placement is not based on post/publish date, it's based on level of service purchsed. They do not get "bumped" off the top position by newer listings. That's the way it should be and that's the way it must be. Otheriwse, why would someone pay for a premium listing?

In closing I would like to say that I appreciate you taking the time to review this post and the concerns it raises. You are going to have to do something to remedy these problems. Sure, you will have hundreds of newbies or those less experienced purchasing this theme and trying to manage their way thru the problems. And chances are, many of them will not know any better and will never ask for a refund. That does not make it OK for you to sit back, leave the theme as is and not listen to the community.

Please do the right thing and acknowledge the shortcomings of the theme as it currently is and dedicate yourself and resources to fix it and make it a real stand out product. You can see from all of the posts here and on WF that people are really looking for a quality directory theme, but one just does not exisit. You have a real opportunity here and your attention to these issues will show us what kind of company you really are.

 

Hello James,

Please send your WordPress Dashboard Login details at [email protected] with the link to this thread. Also, please send me the link of the listing which is appearing and diappearing randomly.

I will let you know the issue.

Thanks
Neeraj

 

Thanks for listing out your concerns.

I did tested the whole thing myself based on your results and I have decided to rewrite the whole search feature from scratch. The search capabilities of regular wordpress are not as strong as GeoCraft Theme needs to get and relying on it creates the whole problem.

I am marking the Search update as our priority and everyone would receive the new theme update within the next week.

2. Right now the difference between Free & Pro Listing was that all the Pro User get the lead data in their dashboard while the Free users don't get any kind of lead data. Hiding few fields for free listings definitely makes sense and I have decided to implement that as well. However it will take couple of weeks to implement, test and launch this particular feature.

Regards,
Neeraj

 

Neeraj,

That is what I call support! That is great news. Please let us know when the new features will re ready.

This will be very beneficial for your entire organization.

Thanks.

 

Check out http://swiftype.com/wordpress for a better "native" Wordpress search. It scans all your posts, autocompletes search, and allows you adjust your search results.

 

I am looking at changing from Vantage to this theme for a few projects, and must say that the search update is a must. As too is the limited options for free and more for paid.

I managed to make the second change myself in Vantage and can tell you it was not very difficult at all. So if it helps the developer here, it was simply using if statement. If featured show this, else don't show it.

Pretty straight forward really. I guess the most work would be allowing admin to configure which to show and which to hide.

 

Bumping this post so that it stays near the top.

These are very important issues and we need to make sure they are completed in a timely manner.

 

Please don't bump.

Address Search already had been updated yesterday, install the theme and let me know if you have any issues.

 

Neeraj,

I see that the search query results have improved. I will test extensively over the next several days.

Are you still on a 2 week timeline to remedy the free vs. premium listings update? Please consider allowing site admins to add, edit, remove, enable and disable all fields as needed for all listing types.

Thanks.

 

Bump. Waiting for a reply from Admin.

 

Right now, I don't have an exact date of launch of this feature update.

 

Please keep us updated on this. It is extremely important to tmh success of any directory project.

 

Neeraj, Thank you for listening to the feedback and for your replies. I am also eagerly awaiting these same enhancements in order to move forward with my projects. I must add my comment as well that these issues are indeed deal breakers if not remedied. I also have to agree with previous posters, in testing several other directory themes this year, they are all lacking. However, your product has REAL promise - and as others have said, you are SO close ! If you can expeditiously grab this opportunity and work out these last key issues, there is no doubt you will have THE top wp directory platform currently available.

 

jsal2,

Thanks for your re-enforcement of the need for these changes. Whitout them, the theme falls short of being truly usable for experienced marketers.

Thanks again!