Foursquare’s venue searches have been problematic lately, with a number of users reporting that venues don’t show up in searches, even when you search by their exact name. 4sqsearch offers an alternative to searching with Foursquare’s website and even adds some features that makes venue searches easier.

4sqsearch is a no frills site with only a few search boxes and a map, but its beauty is in its powerful search function. Users can search for venues by tags (there’s no option to search by venue name). You can set a location to search from and a radius you’d like the search to cover. Searching by radius is a useful tool not offered on the Foursquare site, where searches have a different radius depending on the user’s city.

Perhaps the most powerful search option is the ability to search by minimum number of checkins, allowing users to find the most popular venues in an area. Superusers have been asking for this ability in order to help them concentrate their efforts on the venues where their changes will have the most impact. You do not need to enter a tag to search by minimum number of checkins. Tip: the dropdown starts at >100 checkins; if you want to start with a lower number, just change the “checkins” parameter in the URL.

The venues are shown on a map so you can easily see where they’re located. Clicking the pin reveals venue details such as the address, tags, checkin statistics and a link to the Foursquare page.

The site also offers a page geared toward mobile devices that offers the same search options. The results are shown in a list rather than a map and include the total number of checkins to eliminate any confusion with duplicate venues. Connecting to your Foursquare account allows you to check in directly through the mobile site.

The site uses cached data to perform searches, so changes and additions made recently will not show up, but the data should be recent enough for most purposes. The developer says the data is about a week old and is being continuously updated.

Foursquare’s search function is a work in progress and something they are actively working to improve. 4sqsearch provides a nice alternative while we wait for Foursquare to get their venue searches under control. Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments. Is it easier than searching on Foursquare’s site?

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