Anyone using Advanced Category Filters?

[bob38851]

Maybe I missed it but will the Advanced Category Filter filter out, out of stock items from the advanced options.

Thanks

Anyone know?

[bob38851]

Maybe I missed it but will the Advanced Category Filter filter out, out of stock items from the advanced options.

Thanks

[cbsteven]

They pull directly using your API key

[tclifesafety]

Looks awesome - just what we need. Can they pull directly from the 3dcart store or do you have to supply a separate data feed?

[cbsteven]

SearchSpring would definitely work for that. I have over 250 attributes I need to filter by.

If you have a handful, and enough to cram into the provided extra fields, then you just designate each field as being a "facet".

Here is an example category page from my site. You can see all the things you can narrow down by along the left hand side: Shorts Category

[tclifesafety]

I have been integrating SearchSpring this week and I am very pleased with the service. Happy to answer any questions.

I'm looking for a tool to be able to filter by attribute within categories. How does this work with searchspring? Can you use extra fields, or do you have to do the category trick (create a category for EVERY attribute and assign products to each one)? Thanks for sharing.

[cbsteven]

I have been integrating SearchSpring this week and I am very pleased with the service. Happy to answer any questions.

[jleclair]

I've recently messed with the advanced filters as we are currently in the process of implementing the filters into our site. Cbsteven is correct in saying they have 3 preconfigured ways to present it, but its just a charge for the installation. If you look at the cagegory_0 template, search for the catFilterMainBlock section.

In this section there is a large block of commented code that essentially tells you to use that if you want the dropdown form. The rest is just configurable links whether you want it in your global sidebar or just on the category page.

In short, if you know html, and you want to change it down the road, you'll have what you need to do so.

Thanks!

[Spesh]

In your category html is this <!--START: catFilter--> catFilterCrumb, catFilterCrumbItem and so on?

I'm guessing this is something we can remove?

[BestCostumeSite]

Can you give some examples of why that is? I have been thinking about trying SearchSpring

We looked into SearchSpring. Knowing how SearchSpring works, it doesn't specifically create any additional URL's for the navigation process. In theory, you could create a category structure on your website that would essentially be used for SEO purposes, but SearchSpring itself doesn't create any SEO friendly pages.

[MissHTML]

We bought this 2 years ago, and found out it was limited to 5 filters. Now it just sits there unimplemented :/ Wish we wouldn't have purchased that.

[cbsteven]

I use Search Spring on my site, and quite frankly is sucks horribly for SEO.

Can you give some examples of why that is? I have been thinking about trying SearchSpring

[msjgriffiths]

I use Search Spring on my site, and quite frankly is sucks horribly for SEO.

Thanks for the info, jbanks6424 - good to know that's an option, and it looks slightly better for SEO.

I see that drilling down doesn't change the URL... that's not a good thing. It looks like the category filter is stored in a cookie (catFilter) and you don't get a bunch of URL-addressable pages.

[jbanks6424]

Advanced Category Filters

We have the "Advanced Category Filters" set up on our site

Machine Screws

You might notice we have more than 4 filters. 3dcart set us up for 10 filters for an additional programming charge of $500

Having this option available was the main reason for signing up with 3dcart. We have 35000+ items in the store and it was crucial to be able to filter the items.

Planning is key to this implementation. We built the entire site with CSV uploads. We had our programmer manipulate all of our data so we could add all the items to multiple categories used for filtering at the same time. Once the logic was all figured out it was pretty easy.

If you notice we are not using one of the 3 standard looks they offer. Well actually we are but we are using CSS to style it into the scrolling boxes you see. We are using the "Default" links setup. I modified the template to put everything into an Unnumbered list "<UL>" instead of the way they had it. Then applied the CSS to style it into the scroll boxes.

We actually use 2 different templates. The one above has horizontal scrolling and is used for categories that have more then 4 or 5 filters. Here is one that doesn't use the horizontal scroll:
Cap, Hex

When I was signing up they they kept telling me it all had to be set up manually. Which is sort of true....any category that you want the filters to show up in has to be set up manually. This means you have to go edit every category and choose what filters show up. Really not a big deal.

But you can use CSV upload to assign all your items to the Filter categories. This saves a huge amount of time over going into every item and manually assigning it to the filter categories.

Using the CSV upload on an exiting site could cause problems, because you might end up with new categories. Which would be bad if you already have decent google rankings for those category pages.

[BestCostumeSite]

We've previously used it, and yes it is quite limited. If you use it for what it is intended for, it does work fine.

- You have up to only 4 filters (which for us was a deal breaker)
- As mentioned in previous posts, you have to choose where you want the filters.

When we set it up - it DOES work well. Just wasn't what we needed.

We are planning on setting up searchspring within the next 2-3 weeks, which will negate the advanced filters.