If your rescue has pets listed on Adopt a Pet in transport stop accounts, if you run a search from www.adoptapet.com for all dogs in your city or zip code, you may have noticed your transport stop pets are not at the top of search results. Here is some information to help explain more about how our search function works!
Most adopters using Adopt a Pet search for a specific breed and age. This is especially true for dogs. If you run a search for a specific breed and age of pet, you may see search results like this:
This change was made to improve the experience for adopters and reduce confusion, based on feedback we received. Adopters were sometimes overwhelmed when transport pets, especially in popular transport destinations, filled the first pages of search results. This led some to mistakenly believe there were no adoptable pets in their local area, causing many to abandon their search altogether!
To reduce confusion and increase the chances of pets getting adopted, we now display local pets first by default. Adopters can also choose to see transport pets by selecting a filter, very visibly located right above the Apply Filters button they have to click to refine their search. It looks like this:
This shows the filter's (i) popup tooltip with an explanation of what transport means, as many adopters don't realize that rescues transport pets often long distances to give them a better chance of beting adopted.
Based on user feedback, this adjustment has created a smoother experience for adopters. While transport pets may be receiving fewer page views, they are by adopters who understand and are interested in transported pets, and local pets are receiving more page views and inquires than before the change, for a net positive effect.