Facilities - How the Locator Chooses


Now that we've discussed how many ZIP Codes each facility may have, this section covers how the Locator works and how the list of facilities are selected. Some can be a little detailed but it basically summarizes the distribution of facilities in their respective ZIP Codes and the proportions and rules for choosing them.

The rules can be summarized accordingly:

  • Database grabs a pool of up to 100 facilitiy records to select from.

    • *Up to 10 Free Memberships with exact ZIP Code matches.
    • *Up to 15 Free Memberships if meet the mileage criteria.
    • *Up to 25 Spotlight Memberships with exact ZIP Code match.
    • *Up to 50 Spotlight Memberships if meet the mileage criteria.
  • 10 random records will be chosen from the possible 100 selected to the pool.
  • A facility can be in the pool more than once but can be in the final 10 records only once.

The details

When visitors come to the site, they enter a ZIP code to search. They can also specify the number of miles they are willing to travel to a facility and that is factored into the search results. The default mileage setting is 50 miles so if they do not specify any mileage, the Locater will take into account all ZIP Codes within a 50 mile radius of the ZIP Code entered for the criteria. (There can be a lot of ZIP Codes within a 50 mile radius.)

The Locator's database will then attempt to find up to 100 ZIP code listings which are the 'closest' based on their geographic centers of the ZIP Codes and the distribution pattern below.

10 free - ZIP matches

The Locator will grab up to 10 Free Membership facilities for the pool if they are exact ZIP Code matches. Since we only allow a maximum of 10 Free Memberships to use the same ZIP code, there will never be more than 10. And since a facility's first ZIP code is always their physical location, the system allows for up to 10 facilities, for free, in a relatively small geographic location.

15 free - mileage matches

The Locator will get up to 15 additional Free Membership facilities for the pool that are not exact ZIP Code matches but fit the visitor's mileage requirements. Before the 15 are selected, ALL Free Membershop facilities that are not exact matches and fit the mileage criteria are found and then 15 random records are selected from those.

25 spotlight - ZIP matches

Next, the Locator will get up to 25 Spotlight Facilities for the pool that are also exact ZIP Code matches. Spotlight facilities can attach additional ZIP Codes to their facilities that they wish to target. They must meet the visitors mileage criteria to be included in the results but they are basically a paid inclusion. Since we only allow up to 25 Spotlight Facilities per ZIP Code, we will never have more than 25 exact match Spotlight Facilities in the results.

50 spotlight - mileage matches

Finally, the Locator will select up to 50 Spotlight Facilities for the pool that fit the mileage criteria and that are not exact ZIP Code matches. Just like the Free Membership non-match facilities, first all Spotlight Facilities that fit the mileage criteria are selected. Then 50 random records are selected from those.

Now rarely if ever will the facilities pool have a full 100 facilities but with larger mileage criteria in densely populated areas, it may. If a visitor searches a ZIP code and chooses a mileage radius of 10 miles, that list would probably be significantly smaller.

pick 10 from those

From that maximum 100 facilities in the pool that fit the ZIP criteria, a random 10 records will be displayed each time that ZIP Code is searched. Those 10 records will be listed in a random order as links to the individual facility profiles.

Since a Spotlight facility can list in more than 1 ZIP Code, they will have a chance to appear each time the physical location ZIP Code AND the "spotlight" ZIP Code meet the mileage criteria. However, regardless of the number of times a facility is chosen for the pool of 100, it will never display on the Locator more than once per search.

pick zips around you

So it should follow that 1 facility could be in 1 ZIP Code of a densely populated area and get many chances to be selected for the pool of 100. There are over 2500 cities in the U.S. that have more than 5 ZIP Codes and the chances are extremely high that if you selected those ZIP Codes in thiose cities, you would always hit the mileage criteria.

What this is designed to do is to easily give a way for a facility to get maximum exposure in high-concentrated areas as well as providing a fair, equitable, and random way of choosing facilities. Obviously the system is somewhat weighted towards the Spotlight (or "paid") Facilities but it does give a fair opportunity for the Free Memberships to be found as well.

Featured Facilities have the additional benefit of 'mouseovers' that display a 'SpotLight' view of their profile.  (For full Featured Facility benefits, click here.)

For information on how we generate leads for facilities, click here.

 
SSL