Hello!
For my client, each location is associated with a list of states that the location could service, even though its physical address may not be located in those states. We want the locations to be searchable by these Service Area states (e.g. if Location A is in NY, but can service NJ, PA, and CT, the location should surface for all queries involving NY, NJ, PA, and CT). In order to implement this, we created a Service Areas custom field that includes its physical state and the list of Service Area states and set it as a searchable field, but we had to remove the builtin.location field from being searchable because the builtin.location field seemed to be prioritized over the Service Areas custom field (e.g. for the query “NJ locations”, Location A was not being displayed in the search results, even though NJ was included in the Service Areas custom field). After the builtin.location field was removed and each address field (address.city, address.postalCode, etc) was separately made a searchable field instead, all queries functioned as expected.
However, since the builtin.location field was removed, the “near me” queries now don’t seem to be working properly. Is there any other recommended way of implementing these searchable Service Areas for the Locations vertical?
Thank you!