Thread: Best Practices for a Billion Categories

Best Practices for a Billion Categories

I'm making a business directory for a small town. This is a take on the local phone book, which can easily have 100's of categories. I'll type them in, set up their sub-categories (i.e., Automotive will have New and Used Car Dealers, Repairs, Tires, etc etc etc) and put the appropriate businesses in each category.

Here's the thing: I don't want people to have to click on categories and see up to 600 possible categories and sub-categories if I can help it. I'd like them to see the categories and sub-categories if they do a search. An example of this is seen at www.actionpages.ca, where you can start a search for Auto and instantly see the categories. That would be optimal. If that's not possible, can I show only say Categories > Automotive as a heading and only then have the sub-category menus drop down?

Thank you if you can help.