What Is A Radius Search?
I bet almost everyone has run across websites that let you find stores in your area by typing in your zip code, selecting a distance, and then displaying all of the stores in your area within the distance selected. That's a radius search script in action!
Radius searches are pretty common these days. Almost all big chain retail stores with a web presence have one but even the little guys can make use of this with the right programming knowledge.
What's Needed To Implement A Radius Search?
There are a couple of things that are needed to properly implement a radius search script. First you need to have a database in place that contains the latitude and the longitude of each point you would like to be available in your search. You also need the latitude and longitude of the central search point(ie...the center point of your search). Without the latitude and longitude it's not possible to calculate the distance between two points.
Once you have a database in place you then need the proper coding in place to query your database for records and make sure they fall within the area the user has specified. The code to do all that can be a bit complex for someone that's not familiar with programming languages. Basic HTML won't do the trick. You'll need to use some type of scripting language like ASP or PHP to accomplish this task.
You can find a php radius search script or zip code database with latitude and longitude at zipcodestogo.com
