How does product search work?
Our product search bar allows products in your store to be searched across all categories. Results are delivered together with a set of category filters that customers can use to refine their results.
What products are returned by the search?
You must type at least 3 characters to begin - the search runs across;
- Product name
- Category name that the product appears in (could be more than one)
- Search keys
Any partial or full match across these 3 names will return a result. The search is also smart enough to help out with common typo’s, so if your customer tries to spell oranges without the n, the intended results are delivered.
What defines whether a product will be returned in search results?
We are using the same logic used across the store currently, for a product to be available to search it must be;
- Set to
Published/Enabledin the admin, AND
- Added to a category, AND
- Category must be added to the site navigation
If a product is unpublished, disabled, not in a category, or not in a category that can be found via the menu navigation, then it won’t be indexed by the search.
How do search keys work?
There is a new field on the product page to enter search keys, type then hit return to save each key. Remember to hit save at the top of each product page once you have finished.
Advice on choosing the most effective search keys
Search keys are particularly useful to make your search function more intelligent and useful for your customers. Examples of where they are particularly useful:
Product 1 = ‘Spelt sourdough’
Category = ‘Bakery’
Useful search keys;
‘Bread’, bread is a likely common search term but not contained in the product or category name.
‘Name of supplier’, should you wish to allow users to search by a local supplier to you.
Product 2 = ‘Walnuts’
Category = ‘Store cupboard’
Useful search keys;
‘organic nuts’, will ensure product ranks highly when searching for nuts.
‘healthy snacks’, the category name is very broad so adding a more specific variant could help increase the relevance of results.
Finding the right balance is key here, adding genuinely useful keys that increase the relevance of search results is great, adding too many terms may deliver too many results and dilute quality.
Using a combination of product naming and category naming, then filling in the gaps with search keys is a good way to think about it. With the updated product/category navigation menu, you can afford to have more specific category names without overcrowding your store.
Please note, not all products will require additional search keys. If you can’t think of words that are useful, it may be that your product name and category name are sufficient.
Search key analytics
We are introducing analytics so you can view what searches have been made on your store and whether relevant products were returned. This should prove valuable to understand how search is being used, whether you should consider adding new search keys, and most excitingly, are there any products that my customers regularly search for that I don’t currently offer?
We’ll also be adding related shopping activity to our store analytics, so we’ll be able to visualise how many products are added from search, how many are added from navigating the category menu, and how that compares from desktop to mobile.
Batch updating search keys across your entire product range
We realise that some stores carry a large number of products, manually adding search keys at this scale could be very time-consuming. We are happy to batch update the search key field on your behalf, from a Google sheet.
How do I batch update my search keys?
- Tell us that you’d like to via Discord, email, or via the contact form in our help centre.
- We’ll share a Google sheet with you, populated with your products
- Enter your search keys in column E as shown below
- All search keys should be entered in 1 cell, separated by a comma, as shown below
- Please don’t change anything else on the sheet - especially the
product_ID, which will be used to map the search keys to the product
- Tell us that you have completed the sheet
- We’ll be in touch as soon as we can to let you know the import has been run
