Ultimate Locator would work for me (on numerous sites I manage) if only a user could get a result everytime they do a search on the "city" field. I have a site with a zip code search script and we are finding out that alot of our users bypass the zip code search and use the city search because they are looking for a location out-of-town and don't know the zip code. If they do a search on say Santa Ana, CA nothing comes up even though there is a location only 2 miles away in Anaheim, CA.

Ideal would be the ability to search a city within a particular state and get results showing locations within that city (if any) and locations in towns nearby (sorted by distance).

Another option that could work, on a city search that returns no results, is a link to a search on one of the zip codes in that city (i.e.: Sorry, but we could not find any locations in "Santa Ana, CA". Please click here to search cities nearby or send us an email if you require any further information).

Or, maybe a link on the results page of any "city" search that when clicked performs a zip code search on that city using the default distance.

Are any of these options feasible?

TIA

Hello Tia,

These options are really not feasible, because the locator does not contain lat/long coordinates for cities of the United States. In order to calculate distance, you must have a database of lat/long coordinates, and the only database the locator comes with are the usa zip codes.

Then you would have to customize the locator within the PHP code, which could get very expensive b/c alot of files would have to be changed.

Sorry it's not what you wanted to hear.

If you are interested in a 'custom' script we could probably work on something for you...

I'm up for anything.

Would it be simpler to create a city search on the front page that looks like the following and uses the zip code search feature on cities to return a radius search based on one zip code in a city with a default radius of say 100 miles? In other words, when they type in a city it uses a link to a zip code radius search in the database like this: http://www.ultimatelocator.com/demo/v2.5.1...00&zipsearch=Go Using PhpAdmin I could load each city into the database with the state and url to the zip code search on one zip code in each city.
Click to view attachment

or, is it possible to create a level 1 location for each city like "Click here to search cities near Waterloo and then show links (Waterloo is a city in 7 states) to zip code searches on the details page?

TIA (Thanks in advance ),

Allen

Allen,

Very creative! I think that if you upload a database of City Name and State, you could do this 'forwarding'. Of course, you would have to know php to write up your own functions and routines.