How search works

Search is how users find what they are looking for on your marketplace. It is typically the first thing customers do when visiting your marketplace, so creating an intuitive experience is fundamental to building a successful marketplace.

In your marketplace, both anonymous users (users without a login) and logged in users can search and view listings created by providers on your marketplace. Only logged in users can initiate transactions on these listings.

The New Sharetribe offers keyword search, location search, and custom filters to create the right search experience for your users.

Keyword or Location search

The initial search on your marketplace is possible with using keyword or location search.

If you enable keyword search, your users search for listings by typing text into a search bar. When location search is enabled, users search for listings by searching for a specific place, like a country, city, or street. You can also enable keyword filtering on location based searches if you need both ways of searching.

You can find out more here about the search feature settings.

Search page layout and filters

Your search page (where results from a search appear) can show listings in map view or grid view. You can learn more about the layout options in this article.

On the search page, users can sort and filter their results. You can create sort and filter options from the listing fields you ask providers to fill out. Read more about filters in this article.

FAQ

How do I enable location and keyword search?

If your marketplace uses the location search, you can choose to display a keyword filter on your marketplace search page. This filters all results from the initial location search using keywords. You can enable location and keyword search from Listing search tab in Console.

How do I search by users?

If your marketplace search is built around user profiles, as might be the case in a marketplace for finding and hiring industry experts, then you should build your listings to capture information about the individual. You can change your custom filters, Listing types, and marketplace texts to suit this use case. Searching for user profiles is not possible without making coding changes to your marketplace.

How do I search by Listing type?

Your marketplace may have multiple Listing types, enabling different types of transactions and listings. It is not possible to use Listing types in a search currently, so filters, keyword, and/or location search should be used to help buyers find the right listing.

What happens to listings without availability when using the availability filters?

Before an availability filter is applied, all listings matching the searched for criteria are returned regardless of Listing type. For instance, a keyword search for "bike" will return bikes that are available for purchase and bikes that are available for rental, if both such listings exist in your marketplace. Once an availability filter is applied, then only Listings that have an availability plan (i.e. listings available for bookings) are shown.