Many MetaLocator users often want to feature certain locations in the search results based on their status.  They may be a "Gold" level dealer or a "Featured" location and should be displayed at the top of the list of search results, possibly using different colors or styles.  They may also be a location with the greatest sales figures.  As such, there are two ways to handle prioritization.  First, you can prioritize results at the category level (E.g. "Gold" dealers" or you can prioritize based on a custom field value.  This second option is useful when ordering by a specific value on a per-location basis, such as annual sales.

First create a Category that will be used to classify certain locations as "Featured".  We'll create a category of the same name, by clicking Categories, then New.

Provide a Name for the Category, then set "Prioritize in Search Results" to Yes as shown here:

If more than one category is set to "prioritize in search results", the system will use the Category ordering column to discern the proper ordering. This allows for multiple levels of prioritization.

Now your interface should show prioritized locations higher in the results list, as in the below example. We have set Retailers as a prioritized category. Notice Sample Location 5 appears above Sample Location 3, which is closer to the user's search, but not in the prioritized category.
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If a prioritized category contains multiple results, sometimes it is desirable to randomize the ordering of those prioritized results in order to equitably distribute exposure. For example, if there is a Prioritized Category called "Gold", in which top performing dealers are displayed, randomization can be introduced to avoid constantly promoting a single dealer due to other sorting.

There are two settings related to this behavior:

First, create a field that will contain your custom ordering value.  Under fields, click New, and enter values such as those shown here:

Import your data in the usual way, including a numeric value for the Annual Sales column.  Our data looks like this:

Once we have imported the data, in our Interface, we will designate the Annual Sales column as our Priority Column as found under Filter & Sort Settings.

Note that the field is entered in according to it's "safe" name, which can be found here on the bottom of the Details tab of the Annual Sales field:

MetaLocator supports consideration of more than one field when determining the effective priority of a result. Multiple fields can be provided as shown below:

MetaLocator can then combine or select from the columns provided based on the setting in the Priority Column Sort Method setting:

Options to choose the effective prioritization are as follows:

The direction of the sort is an important consideration in combination with the method:

MetaLocator's priority sorting algorithm excludes empty values. An empty priority column is not considered a zero value in an ascending order.

Results can be ordered or prioritized based the number of fields in the records profile that are not empty. The fields considered in this calculation are those marked as "Crowdsourcing Fields". This option is helpful when encouraging your partners to update and complete their profile in order to boost their ranking.

To set up ordering based on profile completeness, first review the Fields marked for Crowdsourcing:

Note: Address2 is automatically excluded from the completeness calculation.

Then add profile_complete to the Priority Column setting under Filter & Sort as shown below. The typical ordering direction would be Descending, positioning larger percentages toward the top of the results list.

Sometimes the radius for searching isn't the same as that preferred for when a result should be included for prioritization. To apply a separate and smaller radius for Prioritization, specify the value in KM in the Priority Radius Limit setting under Filter & Sort:
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See this note if using Prioritization in combination with the "Nearest" Radius.