Currently, Hivepress is limited to using Google Maps or Mapbox for location services. This approach has several drawbacks:
- Limited Control: You can’t specify a fixed set of locations, such as 10 specific cities. This results in unnecessary costs for each user’s input, which is inefficient.
- Pricing Issues: If you only need to target specific cities and don’t require precise location data, the current pricing model is impractical and vulnerable to abuse, such as DDoS attacks that could drain your budget.
- Performance: Loading the API and waiting for data can significantly slow down the user experience, especially on mobile devices with slower internet connections.
Proposed Solution: Location via Taxonomy
I propose adding a feature that allows locations to be set manually via taxonomy. This would enable you to define and manage locations directly, without relying on external APIs. All data (such as longitude, latitude, city name, country name, etc) which typically returned by Google Maps or Mapbox can be manually configured using taxonomy metadata.
For inspiration on how to implement this effectively, you can refer to the approach used by WpAdverts. Here is the documentation link (scroll to the “taxonomy dropdown” section):
=> hxxps://wpadverts.com/doc/maps-and-locations/
This solution would provide better control, cost efficiency, and performance, enhancing the overall user experience.
