PHP>按名称对查询结果进行排序，同时让每个字母都在顶部

Question

I'm currently working on a site that will display a list of online shops, Each shop will be stored on my database and I'll be using PHP to select and display them.

But since those shops will pay me, I want to let each shop to be on the top of the list sometimes, (for example if the shop name starts with a "Z", they will probably complain for being on the bottom of the list all the time, so I want to keep it fair).

So I thought about letting each letter be on the top of the list for an hour, but i have no idea how to do that.. Is that even possible?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I'd show a separate box and call it "today's pick" or something with just one shop in it. That way you can push the shops starting with "Z" to the top once in a while and at the same time keep the user experience of a list of shops which is sorted normally.

Then use the database to save which shop has been in the "today's pick"-box how many times to get them all up there equally.