DonationCoder.com Software > FARR Plugins and Aliases

Web Metasearch - Help adding new Site

(1/1)

talbottsw:
Hi,

I recently started to use this software and find it so very useful! I am an independent travel agent and use 4 different wholesalers to book my clients hotel accommodations. The reason I use 4 different providers is because there isn't a single wholesaler who always has the lowest price. Depending on the dates, location and specific hotel, any one of the 4 providers may have the lowest price. I am wondering if this plugin could be used to simultaneously search all 4 providers and show them in the search results. If so, is there someone who would be interested in making the functionality work for me?


> Each provider requires my login to access pricing information
> Each provider would require some critical pieces of information to allow the search
> > Location
> > Dates
> > Nationality
> > Currency
> > Property Name

This may not be possible but every single day, over and over again, I find myself launching all 4 providers, logging in, entering the criteria above and comparing prices on all for websites. I thought it'd definately be worth looking into.

Thanks in advance for your guidance, direction and help!

phitsc:
Hi talbottsw,

If you meant to use the FarrWebMetaSearch plugin to do this, I wouldn't recommend it. This plugin relies on the 'structure' of the searched web site to stay 'static'. The problem is that the provider of the respective site can change the 'structure' at any time, breaking the functionality of the plugin. In the worst case this could happen in such a way that you couldn't tell the difference between it being broken and it just not returning any value.

In order to reliably query information from your wholesalers they would have to provide that information via a reliable programming interface (an API). If your wholesalers offered such an API, it would be possible to write a FARR plugin (if that's what you want) or a simple application to query the information relevant to you from all four (or however many offer an API) at the same time.

Navigation

[0] Message Index