Search

The search box in a site’s header finds products on that site. As a customer types two or more characters, a dropdown lists up to 20 products grouped by category, with See all results at the foot. Pressing Enter opens the results page.

The results page uses the same list as a category page, with the same filters and sorting. It shows up to 1,000 matches, best first, and search engines are asked not to index it.

What it looks at

Only products that are published, on that site and in stock can be found. In order of weight, it looks at:

1. the product’s name on that site;
2. its search keywords;
3. its categories’ names on that site;
4. its options: each value’s label, Also known as names and colour group, so “red shirt” finds shirts offered in a red shade;
5. its brand;
6. its codes: variant SKUs and supplier SKUs;
7. its description.

Every word must match. If nothing matches every word, it drops the words that find nothing and says so on the page: “Nothing matched every word, so these are results for …”. Small spelling mistakes are forgiven in words of five letters or more.

If nothing is found, or the search is unavailable, the page says so and offers the site’s top-level categories.

Search keywords

Under Site search on a product’s page, Search keywords are other words customers might search for this product by (synonyms, plurals, other names), separated by commas. They are never shown on the page, and they aren’t the SEO meta tags.

Keywords are the same on every site. Products imported from the old system came with theirs.

Synonyms

Configuration > Catalog > Search Synonyms holds groups of words the search treats as the same, for every product. A search for any word in a group finds what the others would, such as “tshirt”, “t-shirt”, “tee”. A group needs at least two words.

Use New search synonym to add a group, typing each word or phrase and pressing Enter. Changes reach the search within a minute. Synonyms apply to all sites.

Use keywords for one product, and synonyms for a word that applies across the catalog.

When changes appear

The search follows the catalog on its own: a product’s name, keywords, stock, options or price, or the name of its category or brand, queues an update in the background, so it isn’t instant. See background tasks.