This page describes how to set up an advanced search configuration
Background
We have learned how to set up your search configuration previously. In this article we will see how to implement some advanced configurations in order to cope with cases like Make/Model search, search in long descriptions and the usage of search categories.
Requirements
The requirements are to have read and set up your search configuration .
Step 1: Set up your advanced search index
In this section, we will learn how to set up your search index for advanced cases.
Make/Model Search
If your products have model number information (i.e. sony LCD KDL-40w5500) you can make use of our make/model analyzer to cope with those search cases.
Use the following matrix to determine the additional search fields you will need:
| Case | Fields to use | Analyzer | Search field name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model number information and brand name are both contained within the Product name (or short description) | Product name (or short description) | Model Number Special field | product_name_modelnumber |
| Model number information is contained in the Product name but the brand name is only in the field brand | Product name Brand |
Model Number Special field | product_name_modelnumber brand_modelnumber |
| Model number is stored in a specific field (i.e. model_number) | modelnumber Brand |
Model Number Special field | modelnumber brand_modelnumber |
NOTE: If brand name and model number information are not contained together in one field, you will always have to add the brand field using the make/model analyzer in order to cope with search containing both brand name and model number (i.e "sony 40 w 5500")
Long Description Search
We do not recommend searching in the long description of your products unless you know that there is information in your long description that is not available in another field and you know that people are searching for that information (i.e. material information, gender information etc.)
In order to be able to search on the long description, simply add the long description to your search index using once the default analyzer and once the stemmed analyzer. See the screenshot below.
Search Categories
Depending on the quality of your categorization you might not want to index the whole category tree. Bad search results are often due to bad categorization (bad as in bad for search). Please see our guidelines to define categories .
You should not use the whole category tree if:
- You have a lot of compounded categories (i.e. pullovers & tops)
- Your lowest level category is not descriptive (i.e. Women > Fashion > Shirts > short sleeves, Women > Fashion > Shirts > long sleeves...)
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If your lowest level of categories are descriptive (i.e Women > Fashion > Shirts) but you have lots of compounded categories, you can simply select Categories lowest level in your search index and use that instead of the full category tree. |
If your lowest level categories are not always descriptive and you have compounded categories, you should use search categories. Search categories are a special field that you can create using the data manager. The search categories component lets you define rules for categories to be ignored by the search.
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Depending on your data manager version, this component might be called "Remove Category Nodes" |
In general, you should ignore categories containing ampersands (&), commas, the word "and" and other compounding characters or words:
Note the space before and after the word "and", otherwise you would filter any category name that contains the letters "and" like "Brand jeans".
Add the search_categories field instead of the categories field to your search index once using the default analyzer and once using the stemmed analyzer.
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Remember to only use the default (non-stemmed) fields in the Spell Index! |
Final Search and Spell Index
Below you will find a screenshot of the final search index using make/model analyzer (assuming the model number is contained in the product name and brand name is not contained in the same field), long description search, and search_categories:
Your spell index should now look as follows:
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Do not add the fields using the model number analyzer to your spell index! |
Your advanced search and spell index are now set up!
Do not forget to run a full reindex in order to make your changes to the index active!
Step 2: Set up your advanced search passes
We will now enhance our search passes with the new search fields.
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The new search field search_categories simply replaces the search field categories from our previous search pass setup. |
Since we added new fields holding "loose" information, we will add a new search pass to our standard search pass configuration and call it EXACT DESCRIPTION. Here are the steps to follow:
- Go to Business Manager > System manager > Search > Search passes
- Click on "Add pass"
- Name the pass "EXACT DESCRIPTION"
- Choose the PrefixPassComponent
- Activate the same fields as in the EXACT pass plus the new model number and long description fields
- Change the pass settings to Minimum token length = 50 and Maximum query tokens = 1
- Click Apply
- Move the new Pass to position 3 just under the EXACT pass
- Change display condition of the new pass to "Don't show if other results > 0"
The EXACT DESCRIPTION pass should look as follows:
Your overall search pass configuration should look as follows:
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You do not need to change the configuration of the other passes. |
Congratulations! You have successfully configured your advanced search
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