Add synonyms and misspellings to deliver better search results to your customers. You will increase conversions and drive more customers through your checkout.

We have two "types" these are...

A synonym is a word or phrase that means roughly the same thing as another word or phrase. In Search Assist we treat synonyms and misspellings differently.

Synonyms are used in both directions. By adding the term and alias once you are enabling both to work in search. For synonyms we will first combine the results for the term and the alias when returning the results.

Example: Let's say that normally the following happens.

If you then create a Search assist like the below

If you now search for "Letter trays" you will see a combined result of the following.

"Letter trays" returns 11 results + "Filing trays" returns 10 results = 21 results shown

👍 Important: If you then search "Filing trays" notice that we will search "Filling trays" + "Letter trays" because this is a synonym.

👍 Important: The results that are returned are returned in the order of the combination. Thus, is a customer searches "Filing trays" they will see first the results for "Filing trays" followed by the results for "Letter trays". The opposite happens when the customer searches "Letter trays". They will first see the results for "Letter trays" followed by the results for "Filing trays"

This is simply another common spelling or misspelling for a product which is used by the customer. Note that your product catalog data does not use misspellings, if it does then this is a synonym, not a misspelling.

For a misspelling we ignore the results that might have been returned for the "Term" and instead return the results for the "Alias" only.

Example: Let's say that normally the following happens.

If you then create a Search assist like the below

If you now search for "Letter trays" you will see only the results returned for "Filing trays"

"Filing trays" returns 10 results = 10 results shown

You can find Search Assist in the Product Search area of the Admin → Store Settings → General → Product Search → Search Assist

You can export and import terms as well as using the admin for adding individual terms.

To change the alias for a term simply add the term again and we'll update the alias to the new value.

Your changes are instantly available on the storefront if Search Assist is enabled.

Search Assist supports adding terms as single words or phrases up to 5 words long. Where a phrase includes terms that also exist as words or smaller phrases than the longest one matched in the search will be used (the most specific term, the longest phrase).

You can provide several Aliases for a single synonym using the OR pipe character. This means two or more words are being added to the search rather than one when searching the synonym term.

Note that when you use the OR pipe character you no longer get the benefit of synonyms working in both directions. Let's look at an example.

Example: You want to return products of similar colors. Where a customer searches Red, Pink, or Orange you want products of these similar colours to all be returned instead of just the one they specified. To do this you need a term for each color

Now when someone searches for any of the colors red, pink or orange, the search will include the color they searched plus the other two so that similar products can be returned. Note that we don't recommend using the OR pipe character as the Term value.

Where more than one term is found in a search we will replace all of those found excluding those which are found within a term which is found as a longer phrase (see "longest phrase wins" section above).

Example Search "big gray hat" results in two synonym matches:

Search Assist will make one attempt to match as many terms as it can but will not replace a term twice. Using the example below we show how the misspelling replacement is respected but the synonym is not because the term "grey" has already been replaced with the alias.

Example Search "grey hat" will replace the misspelling but not the synonym as well:

Search redirect is a popular way to provide better content for a search term. A synonym will not result in a search redirect so if this is desired then add then term as another search redirect instead. Search Assist terms always return the search results page.

The Search assists are being applied before the scrubbing of the results through catalogue containers (e.g. catalogue, search priority), and search priority (e.g. relevance, brand priority). Using features such as search item priority and brand priority will effect the results and might cause unexpected results.

To better understand search and where the Search assist feature applies in the overall process of returning results, see the steps EvoX goes through before returning results to your end customer.