When someone opens your store locator for the first time, what should they see? All your locations on the map? Just the ones nearby? A blank search bar waiting for input?

You control this in your Map Settings.

The map zooms out to fit every location on screen. Visitors see the full picture and can zoom in to explore.

Best for: businesses with locations spread across a region or country where visitors want to see everything at a glance.

The widget asks the visitor for their location (using browser geolocation) and shows the closest stores. If the visitor declines the location prompt, it falls back to showing all locations.

Best for: businesses with many locations where visitors primarily want to find the closest one.

The widget shows a blank map with a search bar. Visitors type their address or city to find nearby stores.

Best for: businesses with a very large number of locations (hundreds or thousands) where showing everything at once would be overwhelming.

Check your widget preview to see how it looks.

There's a setting called "When the user drags the map, auto refresh and get locations based on the new map center."

When this is ON: dragging or zooming the map will reload locations based on the new visible area. Locations that were visible before may disappear as the map shows locations near the new center instead.

When this is OFF: all locations stay on the map regardless of panning and zooming.

This setting is also in your Map Settings.

Tip: If visitors report that "locations disappear when I move the map", turn this setting OFF.

If you don't want the browser to ask visitors for their location, set the initial behavior to "Show all locations" or "Show empty search". The geolocation prompt only appears when using the "Detect visitor location" option.

When a visitor searches for an address, the widget shows locations within a certain radius. You can adjust this default radius in your Widget Settings.

If visitors are reporting "no stores found" even though you have locations nearby, your default radius might be too small. Try increasing it.

Turn off "Auto-refresh map on drag" in your Map Settings. With this on, the widget reloads locations based on where the map is centered, which can make locations "vanish" as you pan away.

Check your initial behavior setting. If it's set to "Detect visitor location", the widget only shows nearby stores, not all of them. Switch to "Show all locations" to display everything.

Also check if your locations have country or region restrictions set. Go to your Widget Settings and check if there's a country restriction that might be filtering out some locations.

Most browsers block geolocation on HTTP sites. Your website must use HTTPS for the "near me" feature to work. Also, if a visitor previously denied the location prompt, the browser won't ask again. They'll need to manually allow location access in their browser settings.

Questions about map behavior? Hit us up on live chat.