Limit Location dropdown by country

[Rob Kinnear]

Hi – I’ve seen other articles on this which say that this issue has been fixed as of version 3.0.5 – specifically here https://theeventscalendar.com/support/forums/topic/limit-location-dropdown-by-country/ I’m running 3.8.1 but still getting the US versions of cities and towns showing up in th search bar. (I have set the default Country to UK and also added ‘United Kingdom’ to the list of custom countries. Any help much appreciated!

[Brian]

Hi,

I can help out with this.

That topic is in reference to the backend of the site when create events.

Is that what you are talking about? Or is this on the Front End? On the search bar on this page:

http://www.eastlife.ooh-websites.co.uk/events/

Let me know and we can figure this out.

Thanks

[Rob Kinnear]

Yes – I’m after removing from the front end if possible…?

[Rob Kinnear]

And yes from that search bar!

[Brian]

Ok on the front end search bar, got it. Thanks

I looked through the topic you referenced and Rob was talking about the backend setting and that did not apply to the search bar. The other topic linked to from the first one mentions changes to fix this, but was kinda vague. So I looked up more information in our system about this to clarify it.

I found that location information in the Near field of the search bar comes from Google’s map/geocoding engine. We tightened up the code as much as we can to try to narrow it down, but we are at the mercy of what Google returns. Unfortunately, that means there is not much we can do here.

Does that explain what is going on? Sorry it is not the answer you are looking for.

Let me know.

Thanks

[Rob Kinnear]

Ah I see – ok that’s a shame. As my events site is based on a specific region of the UK, it seems odd to users when they see Cambridge in the US when searching. But I realise that this is out of your hands – thanks for the response!

[Rob Kinnear]

Actually – I’ve been having a play with the search bar again and now it’s not giving me any option at all for Cambridge in the UK! Can you have a look and see if you can search for events in Cambridge (without having to put UK after it?

[Brian]

For me it produced all United States results for Cambridge, but since I am in the U.S. it looks like it takes that into account. So if your visitors are searching with computers in the U.K. it looks like it may just start with results in U.K. first.

[Rob Kinnear]

Trouble is I get the same here in the uk. If I put in Norwich or Peterborough which are local towns, everything works fine however, when I put in Cambridge, I click the search button and it gives me 5 or 6 options all in the US but no UK Cambridge or any way of scrolling to another option. When I go to google maps and type in Cambridge it only gives me the 2 UK options. I’ve got a real problem if people find it hard to search for their local Cambridge as that is the main city where all my events are held!

[Rob Kinnear]

Might be worth adding that’s I’ve tried this on both my computers and also my iPhone (on different networks and both the same – no UK Cambridge on search on my site but just the 2 showing when I try searching on Google maps…

[Brian]

When I do visit your site it is pretty clear the events are all around Cambridge in the UK on the initial load, but it is unclear how many people would use the search or not use it when looking for events.

I understand that can be a problem, but the answer does not change that the results are coming from Google and we cannot change what Google provides us.

I have seen a similar issue with Burlington, and most likely other cities that are common in the United States might have this same behavior.

Unfortunately, this is the way the system works, if that is a deal breaker you can email us a pro(at)tri.be with the receipt number and we can provide a refund.

[Author]

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