Search Feature

[CanceloComm]

Hello all,

It would seem that ShopSite is not properly/completely indexing all products in the database.

When I perform an index and publish, the store completes and all/most products show in the list.

However, when I do a search from the store, the app displays a "No products for the search: " for whatever product I was searching.

Not sure how I would go about ensuring all products are indexed and available for customers to locate.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Carlos

[CanceloComm]

ooops - forgot to provide the store URL:

http://www.lawnh2o.com

An example product that was indexed but returns no results is anything with "Febco" in the name.

[Jim]

How do you know the product Febco was indexed?

Indexing depends on a number of things.
1. only product field data is indexed, other information from page fields is not indexed.
2. a page must have the field "Index:" near the bottom of the Edit Page Content screen checked before products on that page will be indexed.
3. The product fields that are to be indexed must be selected on the Preferences > Search Settings > Search indexed screen.
4. Words included in the StopList on the Preferences > Search Settings > Search indexed screen will not be indexed.
5. If a product has the "Search Destination" field on the Products > Edit Product Info screen set to "None" the product will not be indexed.
6. on the Utilities > Publish screen you must have the Check box "Index for search during update" checked or indexing will not be done.
7. Products must be assigned to a page to be indexed.
8. if the product is being used as a subproduct to another product and the Ignore Subproducts during indexing check box is checked the subproducts will not be indexed (Preferences > Search Settings > Search indexing)
9. It use to be that there had to be at least 1 ShopSite generated page marked to have a search form before any products would be indexed. That checkbox is on Pages > Edit Page Content near the bottom and is called Product Search Field:
Occasionally if there have been multiple pages/product changes made and the store is published using the Publish tab that pops up indexing may not take place on all pages. However if you go to Utilities > Publish > Regenerate (and the box to index is checked) then all products on pages marked to be indexed will be indexed.

So check all of those things and see if something is missing.

[CanceloComm]

Good information, thank you.

I am using version 10 of ShopSite, perhaps some of these items have been changed or removed from previous versions since I cannot locate some of them:

2. a page must have the field "Index:" near the bottom of the Edit Page Content screen checked before products on that page will be indexed.

I see nothing like that on the edit page screen.

5. If a product has the "Search Destination" field on the Products > Edit Product Info screen set to "None" the product will not be indexed.

That item, also, does not appear on the product edit screens.

7. Products must be assigned to a page to be indexed.

In the case when one uses an OrderAnywhere form, products would not be indexed and made available for searching? That would seem a bit peculiar...

So far, those are the only inconsistencies that I can see. Perhaps the assignment of products to pages is the culprit, since not all products are assigned.

Thank you,
Carlos

[Jim]

The "Index" field is in the section "Advanced Info" section of the Edit Page Content screen. In that sectopm you enter the page File Name, Meta Keywords, Meta Description, Product Search Field, Index and Google Sitemap Settings

The Search Destination field is not available in the Manager level of ShopSite. In Manager stores the search results link always goes to a ShopSite generated page that the product is on.

It doesn't seem "peculiar..." to me that searching doesn't work on stores using OrderAnywhere links. The search result is a link to where the product can be found. How is ShopSite suppose to know where the Order Anywhere links are placed? It could be in an email, in a banner add on some site, or as the name implies "Anywhere" else. When the OrderAnywhere link is generated it just gives the information for adding a product to the shopping cart. It doesn't query where the link will be placed. When ShopSite generates the pages that the products are on, it knows where the products are located so it can build an index of what page link to return in the search results. However if ShopSite isn't generating the pages it has no idea what links to generate.

[CanceloComm]

Yes, I see what you mean.

However, it is peculiar in the sense that there is a database of products. Why not index the whole of the DB and make all products available to the shopper/visitor?

Just a thought.

In any case, that is, likely, the answer - not assigned, not searchable.

Thanks again,
Carlos

[hiamps]

I have still not been able to make our search work correctly either. I have entered all the correct settings I assume, but shopsite still won't find a word out of the phrase someone enters. If someone types "Beeswax" lots of stuff shows up, if someone types "All Natural beeswax or other natural wax" Beeswax will not show up or any of our other natural waxes although Beeswax is in every product search setting and Natural is a keyword in all Natural waxes....

[Jim]

hiamps.
According to the help http://www.shopsite.com/help/11.1/en-US/sc/pro/advanced.search.help.html
"If you enter more than one word, only products that match all of the words will appear on the search results page. "
so do any of your products contain all of these words, ""All Natural beeswax or other natural wax"?
Note that there is a "stoplist" which includes common words that would not usually give valid results in a search string. The stoplist words are not indexed and will be ignored on searches. The default stoplist includes these words from the above search phrase: all, or, other which will not be indexed and which will be ignored in the search. So that leaves: natural, beeswax and wax, for terms which ALL must be found in the same product. The only products in your store that match that qualification are the Natural Beeswax products. The Vegetable, Carnuba, Coconut, microcrystalline, soy etc do not contain the term "Beeswax". To get a search that will find all of those terms you need to use the Advanced search method described on the above help page. If I use the search term "beeswax OR natural wax" (without quotes) I get 2 pages of search results instead of just the 4 products that I get with "beeswax". The Advanced Search is very similar to what Google and other search engines use for specific searches that include or exclude certain words that may or may not be found in the same context. See the Advance Search form Google uses at http://www.google.com/advanced_search.

You have the Advanced search option enabled on the search results pages, so there is a checkbox for the shopper to enable it and a link to the help that explains how to use it. You can also set the search to always use Advanced method if that would help shoppers find what you have on your site. You can also create a customized version of the Advanced Search help and have the Advanced Search link go to your page by specifying the url on the Preferences > Search Settings > Search Layout screen.

[Jim]

CanceloComm
You could create a single page in ShopSite and assign all your products to that page and then Publish the page. The search would then work and shoppers would be able to get to a link where they could order the product they are searching for. If you have lots of products you may want to create a separate page for each brand, Febco, Rainbird, Toro etc. and assign each brand's products to that page. That would reduce the number of products on a page and would make it easier for the shopper to find what they are searching for.

Note that the Pro level of ShopSite has a special field in the Search Destination: section (not found in Manager stores) where you can enter the url of a non-ShopSite create page where the product is located. Search will then link to that page when the product is found during a search. So the Pro level of ShopSite does provide a way for OrderAnywhere products to be searched.