Search: Synonyms
In this guide, you can read and learn about what synonyms in search are and how to utilize them.
Synonyms
When visitors to your shop are using the Hello Retail search functionality, the search word they are typing, will be matched against the product data that has been made searchable. What this entails can be configured to some degree, but the default fields will be the ones, that are also available in the search engine weights/priority here:
In some cases the searches will not match the data, in the case of misspellings, or the visitor is using another wording, than what you have used.
Synonyms can in these cases be implemented as a way to still help the visitor be navigated to the correct search results.
In general, Hello Retail search functionality can handle misspellings and still be able to present relevant search results.
However, if you are selling sneakers and hoodies on your webshop and a visitor inputs sneaks and hoddy in the search bar then the search engine might not be able to provide relevant results.
Synonyms will help the search functionality by understanding that if you want to search for hoddy to have it direct the searches for hoodies.
How to Create Synonyms
There are fundamentally two ways to add synonyms; either through the search statistics panel, or directly through the menu item itself:
Top Searches without results:
The search queries that are being submitted to the search by the visitors on the site, but are not returning any results, are listed under this item:
From that list, the option of adding both Synonyms and Redirects is available for the individual search term, as is visible in the screenshot above.
Through menu item:
Start by logging into your Hello Retail account. On the dashboard view, navigate to the left-hand side menu. Under the On-site section, click on Search to unfold the drop-down menu.
- Next, from the drop-down menu, click on Synonyms.
- In this view, you can the list of your existing synonyms. If it's empty, then to add synonyms, click on Edit.
- Input the word or term in the Searching for column box and then insert the word that you want to match the word with in the Matches products with column box.
Example: you would input hoddy in the field Searching for and hoodie in the field Matches products with. - Click on Save when you are done with adding the synonyms.
General Notes About Synonyms
- Sometimes visitors are also using English search words on a non-English site, or vice versa.
- The added synonym must be an exact match to the product data that you have. This means that hoodie has to appear in the product data in order for the synonym to work. Furthermore, the existing data has to be present in one or more of these four specific data fields:
Title, Description, Keywords or Brand. - Compound words work for synonyms as well.
- After adding a new synonym, the system needs to go through the product database and index products with the added word. It will therefore take some time before the synonym will go into effect.