I am in the process of building a directory site that will contain nearly 200,000 listings. I will be using an import plugin to add the listings and build the search feature based on location.
Are there any limitations to the number of posts Toolset can handle? What suggestions do you have with regards to such a large quantity of posts? What should a Toolset user remember/avoid when it comes to the site's speed and functionality?
This leads to my last question. Do you have suggestions for a host and hosting type (shared, dedicated, cloud, etc) that could support such a site? I am already having speed issues with my current host (NameCheap).
Thanks in advance.
Hi,
Welcome to Toolset support and I'd be happy to assist.
Toolset plugins don't impose any restriction or limit to the number of posts that can be processed for the search feature. You can use our plugins for a website with 200,000+ listings, but naturally, a website with a large number of posts will require more server resources and will have performance challenges.
Some of the suggestions that I'll share to overcome those challenges are:
1. Always prefer custom taxonomies over custom fields, where custom search filtering is involved. WordPress optimizes taxonomy queries and they're more efficient, compared to the custom fields queries.
2. Use pagination to show the results and choose a realistic number to show results-per-page.
3. Toolset plugins implement internal optimizations and cache features and on top of that, you can use a good cache and code optimization plugin, to further speed up the front-end loading of the pages.
You'll find some very useful suggestions on the topic in this guide:
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As for the hosting, you'll find Toolset's minimum server requirements at:
https://toolset.com/toolset-requirements/
For a large website, you can expect better performance in a dedicated or managed server, since in shared environments, available resources can vary.
Here are some review articles:
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I hope this helps and please let me know if you need any further assistance around this.
regards,
Waqar
Thank you for your time and helpful information. With regards to the search feature and speed. You mentioned that a search feature will:
1. Always prefer custom taxonomies over custom fields, where custom search filtering is involved. WordPress optimizes taxonomy queries and they're more efficient, compared to the custom fields queries.
Do you have any suggestions for searching via address or zip code? My original thoughts were to make address a custom field and then search via address. If custom fields are less than ideal for a search are there any other suggestions in regards to this? Could address or zip be added in a way to make the search fast and efficient?
Most of the search features will use taxonomies with the exception of the most important, the location.
Thanks again!
Thanks for writing back and glad that my message helped.
The "Address" type custom field is useful for storing the exact coordinates of a post/listing item, which can be used to show it on the map or use it for the distance/radius based search.
( ref: https://toolset.com/lesson-placement/lesson-placements-1622939-1161360/ )
However, if this type of point-of-reference based search is not enough for your requirement, you can also include custom taxonomies, for storing individual address elements like country, city and/or zip code etc.
Once you'll have these items stored as a separate taxonomy terms, you'll be able to include a search filter for them too.
Thank you very much for the fast reply.
The radius based search is what I am going for. You mentioned that taxonomies are preferred over custom fields for search, seeing as the address type custom field is a custom field, would the custom taxonomies for storing zip code be a better way to approach this? With regards to performace and load time?
Lastly, do you have a link to a guide on:
"you can also include custom taxonomies, for storing individual address elements like country, city and/or zip code etc. Once you'll have these items stored as a separate taxonomy terms, you'll be able to include a search filter for them too."
I am trying to do it right from the start to avoid having to try different methods and wasting time.
I very much appriciate the support. 5 stars
