What is the Default Search Page?

The default search page is the center of all search activity for your site and acts as the nexus of search results for any saved searches or custom searches you or your customers use. After you've installed the plugin, this is the first item you will set up, as shown above. You get to decide the URL slug for your website. It can be anything but try to think of something that makes sense for your business (A URL slug is the part of a URL or link that comes after the domain extension. In the above example, the slug is /properties/)

The default search page is determined by using the following shortcode: [showcaseidx]

IT IS IMPORTANT YOUR DEFAULT SEARCH PAGE IS ITS OWN PAGE, INDEPENDENT OF CHILD PAGES OR PARENT PAGES!

Note: Do not leave spaces in your slug. For example, /search properties/ will NOT work as a page. Either use a dash or an underscore to complete the URL structure. /search-properties/ would be an acceptable slug.

Where to put it

Showcase IDX 3.0 will automatically generate a 'phantom' page at /properties/ (or the URL you decided on) without even creating a published page. You don't have to create a published page, since this page will just automatically work once the plugin is installed. That being said, we do suggest creating a published page that matches the URL you chose to prevent any weird issues. Doing so will also allow you to style the page to your liking. Simply create a new page in your WordPress installation and add the default shortcode ([showcaseidx]) to the content section.  

Keep in mind there can be ONLY 1 DEFAULT SEARCH PAGE, and if you try to use the [showcaseidx] shortcode on multiple pages it will not work. The default search page can not be your homepage either, but you can add a simple search widget to your homepage to make it easy for someone to search as soon as they land on your website. See how to do that here!

What it does

The Default Search Page is where all property searches happen on your site. Search widgets will redirect to your default search page where leads can see all the listing results for the criteria they've entered. Listing detail pages will use the same styling as is applied to the default search page; if your default search page is on a page with a huge, HD image header, then all your listing detail pages will ALSO have that huge, HD image header. The Default Search Page is used as a "reference" for many of the details of the Showcase IDX plugin, from default styling to which listings are even allowed to be displayed (Click here for more info).