search engine misses the target? Help?

Hi,

I am member of exchange association and just recently I tested the search engine on my own place and it failed. I did a simple search and did fine -- but I live in a popular destination and a lot of places came up. So I tried to narrow it down by specifying more criteria that my place met and -- uh-oh -- my place didn't come up. I went back to check my listing to make sure everything was entered correctly and it was. I tried again and again -- I checked again and again. Failed everytime.

So I pulled a different home in a different country out of the hat and tried the search on that place. Uh-oh -- the search engine failed.

I have sent them a message and maybe they will correct this -- but maybe this is not so easily fixed. I have noticed another problem with the site but figured how to work around it. But this? I'll wait and see if they correct it and won't mention their name until them. But I am paying real money for the service and if it does NOT work then I am prepared to write a blistering review.

But has anybody else run into this? Do you know of any alternative where the search engine really works like it is supposed to?

Any response to this? I have researched this using trial and error -- it looks like one criterion is malfunctioning and if you check that criterion, then more than half the eligible homes are eliminated. So it is an important error affecting more than half the listed homes and affecting every search that uses this one criterion. Of course -- if you knew then you would simply not check this criteria. But how is anyone to know?

I have passed this information on the service and am yet to get a response. I hope that means that they are looking into the matter diligently.

I have heard from them now and they do seem to be taking it seriously -- which I find reassuring.

Glad your exchange company is looking into it Devin- I am a member of two swap clubs (paying ones) and they are both very diligent about looking into things.

However I also have a search functionality problem. I have contacted homeexchange.com about this several times and they say it is on their action list but they STILL haven't got to it although I gather it is already on the list of things they are planning on implementing. I imagine it would be a substantial change to how they organise their listings but it drives me crazy.

My problem is that there is no geographical sort function. This means that the 5,000 or so listings in France for instance are mixed up all higgeldy piggeldy. Whilst there is state by state sorting in the US that doesn't really do the job for California where there are thousands of listings. Our country (England) now has nearly a thousand listings but my only option for looking for a home swap in say Norfolk is to look at the list of listings and hope I recognise the town names or to use the keyword search. However by using the keyword search I am relying on people having mentioned Norfolk in their listing and some people (especially those new to the system) won't have realised that this is a good idea. Others of course instead of using the county name will name the region- eg instead of Gloucestershire they will say "The Cotswolds". This problem is amplified many times when looking overseas. I have even less chance of recognising village and town names in places I haven't visited and of course there is the issue of whether they have angliseced the name eg Tuscany or are using the Italian spelling. And of course you pick up all the people who have mentioned where they have swapped in the past or are looking to swap to those places.

I know that some people avoid this whole problem entirely by just doing reverse search but again because there is no organisation to how people request a location this doesn't pick up all the people interested in visitng our part of the world. Also people looking in this area may just say South West England or Devon or Cornwall or they may use the French or Italian spellings for Cornwall!!

I really really like the homeforexchange method of splitting listings and going from continent to country to region to area and then town. Why oh why can't homeexchange.com do this- they have such an extenive database. It's driving me crazy.

They could also do with having a list of recently updated listings or a ready to exchange now list either of which people only stay on for a few days- this would be a great way of avoiding wasting time on people who aren't looking to swap at the moment.