Search settings

8 min

Optimizely Configured Commerce offers several settings for tuning and improving search performance.

Note

Configured Commerce does not have an out-of-the-box Hawksearch connector. Work with Hawksearch and your partner at the project level to implement it.

You must complete a full index rebuild to apply any changes to search settings.

Go to Marketing > Indexing in the Admin Console.

Click Rebuild All to rebuild all, or click Full Rebuild for the product or content search index category.

Admin Console settings

You can find these settings in the Admin Console under Settings > Search.

General

The Admin Console organizes search configuration by provider. Within the General settings, the Elasticsearch (Commerce Search v1 or v2) settings and the Retail Search (Commerce Search v3) settings are grouped together so you can see the settings that apply to each provider at a glance.

Attribute Filters – Customers can use attributes (attribute values grouped by attribute type) on the left menu of the product list as filters. This does not control category or price faceting. You must reindex for changes to this setting to take effect. The default value is On.

Hide Facets Until Category Selected – Filters for attribute facets do not display in search results unless the user selects a category. The default value is No. This setting only displays if Attribute Filters is set to On.

Search History – Users see their previous searches when they click on the search box and nothing is in it. The default value is On.

Search History Limit – The number of previous searches that display to the user when they click on the search box and nothing is in it. The default value is 10. This setting only displays if Search History is On.

Log Product Search Queries – Product search queries are included in the Application Logs. This should only be used by developers and results in a lot of data if enabled. The default value is No.

Search Provider Name – The name of the search provider, set per website. Choose from Commerce Search v1 (formerly Elasticsearch), Commerce Search v2 (formerly Elasticsearch v7), or Commerce Search v3. Each website can use a different provider.

Search Indexer Name – The name of the search indexer, set globally. Choose from Commerce Search v1 (formerly Elasticsearch), Commerce Search v2 (formerly Elasticsearch v7), or Commerce Search v3.

Commerce Search v1 or v2 (Elasticsearch) settings

These settings apply only when the Search Provider is Commerce Search v1 or Commerce Search v2.

Show Attributes on Search – Attribute facets display for search results, not just category pages. The default value is No.

Search Non Alphanumeric Characters – Non-alphanumeric characters are preserved, and whitespace is used to split words. If Off, non-alphanumeric characters are ignored. The default value is Off.

Stopword Mode – What list of common words are excluded from search queries. You must reindex for changes to this setting to take effect. The default value is Custom.

Custom – Uses the list from Search > Stopwords in the Admin Console.

Default – Uses the internal list of English Lucene stopwords.

None – Does not use stopwords.

Maximum Attribute Facets – The maximum total number of attribute values that are displayed across all attribute types in the product list. By default, each attribute type displays five attribute values, which users can expand to show the full list of attribute values. This setting does not affect that behavior. The default value is 1000.

Website Specific Attributes – If On, only attribute types assigned to categories in the website are faceted, which can impact performance. If Off, faceting is across all valid attribute values for each product, regardless of the site. You must reindex for changes to this setting to take effect. The default value is Off.

Enable Nested Documents – Nested documents are queried, analyzed, sorted, retrieved, aggregated, and highlighted. The default value is No

Boosting

Product Boosting – If On, specific products can be boosted to display higher or lower in search results. If Off, product boosting values are ignored. The default value is On.

Enable Boosting by Purchase History – Products purchased within a defined lookback period are boosted in search results. The default value is No.

Lookback Months for Purchase History Boosting – Customer purchases within this number of months are used to identify products to boost based on purchase history. Increasing this value increases the time it takes to rebuild the search index. The default value is 6.

Frequently Purchased Threshold – The number of times a customer must have purchased a product within the defined lookback months to consider it "Frequently Purchased" for boosting. The default value is 3.

Boost Amount for Frequently Purchased Products – The multiplier applied to search result scoring for products purchased more than the frequently purchased threshold. This value is included with the values for matches for all indexed fields and other boosting options to determine the search score and rankings. The default value is 3.

Boost Amount for Less Frequently Purchased Products – The multiplier applied to search result scoring for products purchased recently but not enough to be considered frequently purchased. This value is included with the values for all matches for other indexed fields and other boosting options to determine the search score and rankings. The default value is 1.5.

Allow Filtering for Previously Purchased Products – Users can filter search results or category product lists to only see products that they have previously purchased, based on data available in the order history table. The default value is Yes.

Shared Fuzzy Search (misspellings)

Fuzzy Search – Fuzzy search is enabled on the site. The default value is On.

Max Edits – The maximum number of character edits that can be made to a search string to return a match. This can be either a character swapped for a different character or a character being added or removed. The default value is 1.

Prefix Length – The number of initial characters that must match and will not be fuzzified. A value below 2 results in performance issues. The default value is 2.

Shared Partial Matching

Minimum Match Count – The minimum number of words that must match to return a result. Negative numbers indicate the number of optional words. Works in conjunction with Minimum Match Percent. The default value is 2.

Minimum Match Percent – The percentage of optional words in a search term that must match to return a result. Negative numbers indicate the percent of optional words that can be missing. This works in conjunction with Minimum Match Count. The default value is 75.

Elasticsearch Search index

Batch Size for Indexing – The number of records to send to Elasticsearch in each request during indexing. Reindexing is required for changes to this setting to take effect. The default value is 250.

Concurrent Requests for Indexing – The number of concurrent requests to make to Elasticsearch during indexing. Reindexing is required for changes to this setting to take effect. The default value is 8.

Enable Ngram – Product number and manufacturer item values are indexed using ngram indexing. This indexes segments of the values to return relevant results for partial matches. For example, if your product numbers are formatted like ABC12345 and your customers normally search for only the numeric segments, 12345 are indexed and return a product match in searches. Values are indexed with and without special characters included. The default value is No.

Minimum Ngram Length – The smallest number of characters of ngram segments to be indexed. This should match the smallest search term length that your customers would search for matches on product numbers. For performance reasons and to prevent erroneous matches, the minimum value is 3. The default value is 5.

Maximum Ngram Length – The largest number of characters of ngram segments to be indexed. This should match the largest character length of your product numbers. For performance reasons and to prevent erroneous matches, the minimum value is 3. The default value is 8.

Enable Product Number Tiebreaker – This feature sorts product search returns by product number to handle ties in the search term results when the relevance score is identical. The default value is No.

Enable Force Merge – A force merge is performed after building indexes. This adds some build time but provides consistent search results. The default value is Yes.

Shared Search Suggestions

Enable Search Suggestions – AutoCorrect and DidYouMean are configurable on the site. The default value is On.

Enable AutoCorrect – This setting enforces the autocorrect threshold and part number settings. The default value is Yes.

AutoCorrect Threshold – The minimum confidence level at which searching on a mistyped phrase automatically searches on a corrected phrase. A value of 1 means the corrected phrase must have a closer match to the product data than the original phrase. Higher numbers require an even better match to apply the correction. The value must be higher than or equal to the DidYouMean Threshold. The default value is 2.

Exclude Part Number from AutoCorrect – An exact match on a part number prevents Commerce Search from autocorrecting the search query. The default value is Yes.

Enable DidYouMean – This setting enforces the DidYouMean threshold setting. The default value is Yes.

DidYouMean Threshold – The minimum confidence level at which searching on a mistyped phrase presents a suggested phrase correction but searches on the original phrase. A value of 1 means the corrected phrase must have a closer match to the product data than the original phrase. Higher numbers require an even better match to apply the correction. This must be lower than or equal to the AutoCorrect Threshold. The default value is 1.

Max Edits – The maximum number of characters that can be changed on a word to be considered as a suggestion. The default value is 2.

Max Errors – The maximum number of errors that can be corrected when generating suggestions. A decimal between 0 and 1 indicates a percentage of words that can be corrected. Whole numbers greater than or equal to 1 can be used to specify the exact number of words that can be corrected. Numbers higher than 2 may have a negative impact on performance. The default value is 0.3.

Commerce Search v3 (Retail Search) settings

These settings apply only when the Search Provider is Commerce Search v3.

Enable Dynamic Facets – Dynamically generated attribute facets are displayed in search results. You must reindex for changes to this setting to take effect. The default value is On.

Search Query Expansion – Expands search queries to return results when the original query returns few or no matches. The default value is On.

Canonical Filter – A special-purpose filter used by query expansion to evaluate search results against a broader catalog view. This helps determine whether a lack of results is due to a poor query or applied user filters. The default value is No. This setting only applies when Search Query Expansion is On.

Serving Config ID – The serving configuration ID to use for search and category browsing. The default value is default_search.

Google Cloud Retail Search settings

These settings apply only when the Search Indexer is Commerce Search v3.

Batch Size for GoogleRetailSearch Indexing – The number of records to send to Retail Search in each request during indexing. Reindexing is required for changes to this setting to take effect. The maximum value is 100. The default value is 100.

Concurrent Requests for GoogleRetailSearch Indexing – The number of concurrent requests to make to Retail Search during indexing. Reindexing is required for changes to this setting to take effect. The default value is 1.

Apply Default Configurations – Applies default search configurations to Retail Search projects. The default value is On.

Update Attribute Controls – If On, product system attributes on Retail Search projects are updated with default values. The default value is On. This setting only displays if Apply Default Configurations is On.

Update Autocomplete Controls – If On, autocomplete controls on Retail Search projects are updated to default settings. The default value is On. This setting only displays if Apply Default Configurations is On.

Product Catalog Import Request Delay – A delay, in milliseconds, added to inline product catalog import requests to Retail Search. It ensures compliance with the Retail Search quota limit for inline product catalog imports. The default value is 600.

Redact PII – If On, personally identifiable information (PII) in search requests to Retail Search and in user events imported into Retail Search is redacted. The default value is On.

Enable Branch Switching – When enabled, the catalog maintains multiple versions of the product catalog. This setting is disabled by default. To enable branch switching, create a support ticket.

Deactivated Products Lookback Days – The number of days to look back when deleting deactivated or archived products in the product catalog. The default value is 7.

Use Modified Date for Lookback – If On, the product's ModifiedOn date determines whether a product falls within the lookback window for Retail Search indexing. If Off, the product's DeactivateOn date is used instead. This setting works in conjunction with Deactivated Products Lookback Days. The default value is On.

Enable Ngram – Selected product data field values are indexed using ngram indexing, which breaks the values into smaller segments so partial matches can be returned. For example, if your product numbers look like ABC12345 and customers typically search only for the numeric portion, the segment 12345 is indexed so that search returns the correct product. Values are indexed two ways: with spaces removed but special characters kept, and with both spaces and special characters removed. The default value is No.

Minimum Ngram Length – The smallest number of characters used when generating ngram segments. This should align with the shortest search terms your customers enter for product numbers. For performance reasons and to reduce inaccurate matches, the minimum value is 3. The default value is 5. This setting only displays if Enable Ngram is On.

Maximum Ngram Length – The largest number of characters used when generating ngram segments. This should align with the longest product number you expect customers to search for. For performance reasons and to reduce inaccurate matches, the minimum value is 3. The default value is 8. This setting only displays if Enable Ngram is On.

Product Number – If On, product number values are indexed using ngram indexing. Each value is indexed two ways: one with spaces removed while keeping special characters, and one with both spaces and special characters removed. Up to 400 tokens can be generated during indexing. The default value is No. This setting only displays if Enable Ngram is On.

Manufacturer Item – If On, manufacturer item values are indexed using ngram indexing. Each value is indexed two ways: one with spaces removed while keeping special characters, and one with both spaces and special characters removed. Up to 400 tokens can be generated during indexing. The default value is No. This setting only displays if Enable Ngram is On.

Product Data Fields – The product data field names, including product attributes or custom properties, whose values represent part numbers and should be indexed using ngram indexing. Each value is indexed with spaces removed while keeping special characters, and with both spaces and special characters removed. Up to 400 tokens can be generated per data field during indexing. This setting only displays if Enable Ngram is On.

Autocomplete

Autocomplete settings apply to Elasticsearch (Commerce Search v1 and v2). Only the Autocomplete setting itself also applies to Commerce Search v3 (Retail Search).

Autocomplete – Users see the autocomplete drop-down list as they type in the search box. The default value is On. Applies to Commerce Search v3 (Retail Search) and Elasticsearch.

Show Categories – Category autocomplete results display as the user types in the search box. The default value is Yes. Applies to Elasticsearch only.

Show Website Pages – CMS pages display as autocomplete results as the user types in the search box. The default value is Yes. Applies to Elasticsearch only.

Show Products – Product autocomplete results display as the user types in the search box. The default value is Yes. Applies to Elasticsearch only.

Show Brands – Brand autocomplete results display as the user types in the search box. The default value is Yes. Applies to Elasticsearch only.