If you currently use our Radial Search Add On, or are thinking of adding radius search to your property website so users can search for properties within a set number of miles, these updates might be of interest to you.
The latest version of the Radial Search add on, version 1.0.11, was released earlier today with the updates all focusing on speed and optimisation. Let’s take a look at these in a little more detail below:
Indexing Added To Database Tables
TL:DR; Property searches performed with a radius specified are now quicker and more efficient.
In order to perform radial searches we create a new table in the database when the add on is first activated. This table is called ‘wp_lat_lng_post‘ and it’s sole purpose is to store the co-ordinates of each property so we can do efficient radial searches.
When a site contained a lot of properties, we’re talking 1,000+ properties, it was becoming apparent that the searches were starting to take a little longer. We found that by adding an index to this database table we were able to massively reduce the time queries take and the load on the server. The site we tested this on with over 5,000 properties saw an improvement of around 40%.
Excluding Off-Market Properties
Referring back to the database table mentioned above which stores property co-ordinates, this would grow and grow over time as properties came on and off the website. With this update we now remove the co-ordinates for properties when they come off the market so that they’re no longer included when doing a radial search. This means a smaller, more lightweight table which is quicker to query.
This might not make much difference right now, but is especially important in the long run as the number of properties within WordPress builds up.
If you’re already using our Radial Search add on on your estate agency website we recommend updating now to receive these latest optimisations. If you have a license key you can update right away through WordPress.
