Many of our advertisers have been confused by our 'Location Availability' field; set when submitting or updating a resource. Most feel that since they are submitting a website, they would be limiting their coverage to select anything else other than 'Available World Wide'.

This is quite untrue, as this submission field serves to allow our site's visitors to find resources that are specifically available to them.

An explanation of the 'Location Drill Down' feature

Instead of approaching this explanation from a technical angle, as I usually would, I would like to simply state how a user of our site might use this feature.

You will notice at the top of any of our search results or categories pages, a 'Drill Down' tool. By default this is set to 'Any Country'. This means that the search results are unfiltered.

A user, may elect to change this setting to further filter their results. They do so by selecting a country name from the drop down list; the name of the country that they are in, or the country that they are interested in (for example, hotels for an upcoming trip to a specific country). This has an obvious impact on categories such as 'churches', 'plumbers' and 'accommodation', but a lesser impact on categories such as 'web hosts', where only a few matches may be removed (those resources who choose to limit their customer base to a specific country).

The user may then filter down further, to their area of the country, and then their city or town, if desired.

The confusion for advertisers

Some advertisers feel that if they specify that they are only available in their city, then they will miss matches from areas close by. But this depends on how far a visitor to our site drills down. Most people will only drill down as far as makes sense. Therefore, if they are looking for an ISP or webhost, they will usually not drill down further than their own country. They will probably not Drill Down further than their state or region for things like 'Wedding Photographers', but they will probably drill down right to their own city if looking for a church or singing tutor.

The main thing to remember is that if you are only available to people in a specific town, then you are also available to a subset of people in that town's region and country. Therefore, your listing will be included on all appropriate drill down results.

The next biggest confusion is easiest explained by our most common scenario. So many churches point out to us that they are an international church and available to people anywhere. But if someone on the other side of the world was looking for a church in their own town, it would be less than helpful to include your resource in the results. In fact, all churches (except online churches) have a very small area of service; yes people sometimes do travel reasonable distances to go to church, but they do not often cross states or countries each Sunday.

Another confusion makes itself apparent depending on what an organisation does. If a travel agent sells trips to many other countries, but this service is only available to customers living in one particular country, then that resource's area of availability is 'My Country'. The same mistake often happens with mission organisations who might have a website specifically offering volunteer opportunities to citizens of the organisations home country. Yes, those volunteers may end up anywhere in the world, but the service that is being offered is only available to people from that particular country. A similar problem happens with 'receiving organisations'. If a local mission organisation, serving people from a particular community, has a website advertising their services and what they do, then that organisation's area of availability is that particular community. If a visitor to our site is wanting to look for a mission organisation in a specific area, or available to volunteers from a specific area, you have a much better chance of being discovered if your 'area of availability' is correctly set.

Some submitters do not want to limit their area of availability, because they feel that their service is of interest to all people. For example, sites discussing legal and accountancy aspects of one particular country have an area of availability of 'My Country'. If a foreign visitor to our site wants to find this sort of information out about your country, you have more chance of your site being discovered if your 'area of availability' is correctly set.

What is your resources area of availability

You should choose a setting that will be of greatest help to your potential visitors. Many online sites appear to be available to everyone, but how frustrating, once you have filled your shopping cart, and nearly completed your order; you arrive at the shipping page, only to find that delivery is only possible in one particular country. You may believe that your service is available to people world wide, but is it really? You would be better off, and cause much less frustration to visitors sent via our site, to specify the minimum/usual area of availability.

This might not always be clear and may differ between your services. The best way of deciding the best setting is by choosing your main, or primary, service and then the most appropriate and representative (not what you would wish for) area of availability. For example, if a bookshop only sells books to people from the same country, but has reviews and other information on their site which may be of use to people everywhere, then that resource's area of availability is 'My Country' as the websites main service is to sell books.

Here are some examples of usual areas of availability:

• World Wide - Internet information services with no shipped product. Sites whose products can truly be shipped anywhere in the world.
• My Country - ISP's. Country specific information services including accounting, legal, government, etc. Mission organisations.
• My State/Province - Locally available services with a customer base covering the whole state/province. Plumbing services. Photographers. Builders. etc.
• My City/Town - Anything only available in your own town/city, or where people have to travel to you for service, or where service is only available within your shop/building. Accountants. Lawyers. Churches. Bookshops. Mechanics. etc.

Upcoming changes

Currently you can only specify an availability of 'World Wide', 'My Country', 'My State/Province' or 'My City/Town'. We do have plans to make this more flexible so that you can include you complete and actual geographical area of availability.

This article discusses the different ways or reasons you might receive contact from CBD-Search (or via our website). Which emails are mandatory, and which can you opt-in or out of? It is important that you know what the email contact might be from websites so that you can choose whether you want to join or not. Signing up indiscrimately with various sites and then, later, using your SPAM software to remove emails that you do not want, is detrimental to both yourself and others. When you sign up to CBD-Search, you will infrequently receive a variety of system generated emails, to perform such tasks as : Confirm your email address. Notify you of inclusion of your resources. Notify you of any changes that affect you (insufficient funds, policy changes, etc.) Verify the continued accuracy of your listings with us. Answers to requests you submit, either by our contact form, or by requesting a password reminder or unsubscription details. These are all sent to the email address associated with the user that you signed up to CBD-Search with. If there is ever an occasion that we can no longer contact you via the email you have listed with us, either due to your email address no longer being valid, your ISP temporarily blocking us or our hosting company, or for any other reason, we will remove your account and all associated resources and services. This is so that we can continue to maintain the integrity of the data on the site. Apart from the mandatory emails, there are also a selection of optional emails which you can subscribe to. CBD-Search publishes a monthly newsletter. Your subscription, and whether you receive the HTML or Text version, can be changed by logging into CBD-Search and selecting 'User Details'. We recommend that you do subscribe to the newsletter so that you are aware of changes and opportunities available to you at CBD-Search, but at this time, this remains your choice.

When you submit a resource to CBD-Search, you can choose whether to be contactable via our site. For each resource you have submitted (Login to CBD-Search and select 'My Resources') an email address is listed along with the option 'Details to be displayed - Email Address'. Selecting this option, and including a valid email address will add a 'contact us' form to the details of your resource on our site. Our system will forward any submitted queries on to you, and your email address will not be made available to the sender unless you reply to their message. It is possible that this system can be used to send SPAM, but we have added the additional security that a visitor must first subscribe and login to CBD-Search before they can send messages to our customers. We hope that this will stop most SPAM, but if you have a problem, please do tell us and we will introduce further anti-SPAM mechanisms and controls. Of course, it remains you choice whether you want to be contactable via our website, as stated above. If you submit an article to be included on any CBD-Search Blogs or the newsletter, you can choose whether you wish to be contactable by readers of the article. This will include a link on your article to a CBD-Search 'contact us' page. We will then redirect the message on to you, hiding your email address from the person contacting you; until you reply to them. Again, it is possible that this system could be used to send SPAM, and although it is recommended that you be available for contact regarding your article, it is possible that some responses might be SPAM. If you have a problem with SPAM, please do tell us and we will introduce further anti-SPAM mechanisms and controls, but, of course, it remains you choice whether you want to be contactable via our website, as stated above. CBD-Search maintains a very serious anti-SPAM policy at all times, and is pro-active in removing the ability for any of our customers to be SPAMed via our site. Please read our SPAM policy for more information.