i live on an island and am getting suggestions for sitters who live off-island. Why?

Deb has given you detailed instructions on how to search for dogwalkers in your vicinity, rather than the inappropriate results Rover's search function provides.

I have complained about this for years, both directly to Rover on the phone and on surveys. It seems like Rover never conducted a focus group of customers to find out their needs when doing a search, when proximity can be a key concern, especially in urban areas. In some cases, I have had customers who do not have cars and, for those who do have cars, who wants to deal with traffic in my part of the city. Not everybody understands that you can manipulate the map to get sitters who live closer.

As a customer, I would make my complaint known to Rover, either by phone or email (support@rover.com).

I agree that the search function leaves much to be desired. In my area, traffic makes drives of less than ten miles take half an hour, so the search feature bringing up sitters 20-30 miles away (which easily = 1 hour or more) is not helpful.

In order to get results for sitters just on Staten Island, I used the + sign to zoom in on the map and then clicked the "Update when I move the map" box. This then shows 48 sitters.
https://www.rover.com/staten-island--...

If you want to repeat by zooming in with the + (plus sign) as many times as you want, click&drag to move the map as needed, and then click "update when I move the map" box, you can zoom into just your neighborhood. I hope this helps.

When I did this for the island (not zoomed your specific area), just 29 sitters came up. https://www.rover.com/staten-island--...

Rover probably uses the same technique of dating sites and such (measuring distance from zip codes, except Rover bases it upon your registered address). Do other social sites take local conditions like toll roads into account? That would be a lot of (subjective) information to take into account. For example, you might not be desperate enough to pay the toll, but your neighbor might be. :)

I agree with you that a way to limit searches to a specific zip code would be useful and easy to implement. I don't know if Rover takes feedback through this community, or if using their contact form would be better. If someone from Rover doesn't say something here, I would use the contact form (Help Center). You have a good suggestion.