Search: Phrase Settings
In this guide, you can read and learn about setting up the phrase settings for your search functionality.
By changing the search phrase settings, it is possible to influence how the search functionality finds results when customers are searching for a phrase rather than just a single word— for example, "running shoes" instead of just "running" or "shoes".
Types of Phrase Settings
There are five available settings that will influence the results:
- Match full phrase
- Match all words — exact match
- Match all words — allow spelling mistakes
- Match any word — exact match
- Extra settings
How to Set It Up
- 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 Search Engines.
- Click on Edit search settings.
- Under Search phrase settings, you'll see a drop-down with the available settings.
The dropdown allows you to change between five different search schemes.
Match full phrase
If this setting is chosen, the full search phrase has to be contained in the product title, description, or other associated text, for the product to pop up as a result.
Example: If a customer searches for "blue running shoes", a product with, for example, a description saying "... these are the fastest blue running shoes, you'll find..." will come up as a result.
But if the description says "... these blue shoes are perfect for running...", the product will not come up as a result.
The full phrase has to be there in the same order as written in the search bar.
This setting is restrictive as some relevant products might be omitted from the results, but on the other side, customers can search for precise terms and find the products.
Match all words — exact match
Choosing this setting will allow the search engine to match all words in the search phrase across any text associated with a product.
Example: So, if a customer searches for "blue running shoes", and a product has the title "Running shoes", and a description with "These shoes come in blue, red and green", the product will show up as a result.
But it has to be an exact match, so searching for "Yellow running shoes", will not bring up the before mentioned product as the word Yellow is not found in the text.
This setting is broad and will bring up a lot of relevant results while excluding products that might be somewhat relevant but are not really what the customer is searching for.
Match all words — allow spelling mistakes
This setting generally works in the same way as Match all words — exact match, but with the added functionality of allowing spelling mistakes.
All words still need to be in the product text but will match words that are spelled wrong.
Example: So, if the customer searches for "Blue running choes", the product with the title "Running shoe" and "blue" in the description will pop up as a result.
All words still have to match, though, so "choes" has to match a word somewhere in the product text, as we take the incorrect spelling into account.
This setting is as broad as the previous but allows spelling mistakes. It will exclude products not matching all words, so that "blue running shoes" does not bring up blue running pants.
Match any word — exact match
With this setting, any product that contains any word in the search phrase will be presented as a search result.
Example: searching for "Blue running shoes" will result in products containing any word in the phrase, but prioritizing products matching all three, then two, and so on.
As the setting name implies, there has to be an exact match, so spelling mistakes will not be corrected. So, a search for "Blue running choes" will not bring up shoes — other than shoes that match the two other words in the phrase, blue and running.
This setting is very broad and will find a large selection of products, but since the setting prioritizes products matching all words, the first search results will still be super relevant.
As the customer scrolls through the result, at some point, anything blue will also pop up that might be less relevant. But the customer apparently likes blue, so there might still be something there the customer will like.
Match any word — allow spelling mistakes
This setting is the same as above but allows spelling mistakes.
Example: So, a search for "Blue running choes" will find products with blue, running, and shoes, just as if the search was for "Blue running shoes".
As with the previous setting, products with all three words of the phrase will be prioritized, so even though the search will be broad, the first results will still be super relevant.
This setting is the broadest and will allow for spelling mistakes. It will, as with the previous setting, make sure that the first products are super relevant, although the results will contain products matching any of the words.
Extra settings
As you can see in the last screenshot, there are two extra settings that you can enable.
If you enable "Stop if exact product number is found" there will only be a single result if the search is for a specific product number and there is a match.
This is often used by webshop owners and employees if they use the webshop Search to find products. Customers can do the same, of course, but they don't often use product numbers.
If you enable "Split compound words in search", the search engine will do just that. So, if the search phrase contains the word skateboard, the search engine will treat it as skate and board and find matches for each word and not just skateboard as one word.