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Radius Search

Standard License Extension

The Radius Search extension lets visitors find inventory near them. They enter a ZIP or postal code, or tap Near me to use their device location, and the search results are filtered to a chosen distance and can be sorted nearest first. Each listing can also show how far it is from the visitor.

It works from the coordinates you already keep on your location categories, so once a category is set up for radius search every listing assigned to it is searchable by distance with no per-listing work.

Requirements

Requirement Value
DMS version 1.0.0 or newer
License Standard or higher
Page builder Elementor, for placing the filter element
Location data A location category with latitude/longitude on its terms

How it works

  1. You turn on Use for Radius Search on a location category and make sure its terms have coordinates. See Settings.
  2. Saving a listing copies that term's coordinates onto the listing. This happens automatically for every listing in the category.
  3. You place the Radius Filter element on your search results template. See Radius Filter Element.
  4. Visitors filter by distance from a ZIP / postal code or their browser location. Optionally, add the Distance Shortcode to your listing card to show the distance to each result.

Location is per-browser

When a visitor uses Near me, their coordinates are held in that browser for the session only (sessionStorage, 30 minutes). Nothing is stored against a user account or written to your database, and no login is required. A ZIP or postal code they type is sent with the search request and not retained.

Postal code accuracy

ZIP and postal codes are converted to a map point from a built-in table:

  • United States — all ~41,000 five-digit ZIP codes.
  • Canada — the ~1,600 FSAs (the first three characters, e.g. K1A) ship built in. The full ~900,000 six-character postal codes are downloaded once, automatically, in the background the first time an administrator loads the WordPress admin after installing. Until that finishes, Canadian searches resolve to FSA level, which is accurate to a few kilometres.

If a code isn't in the table the extension falls back to a public lookup service. Everything is centroid-level (the centre of the ZIP / postal area), which is what radius search needs — not a street address.

Next steps