After you create the search test, specify the search criteria you want to include. All test inputs are optional and can be used alone or in combination to test various searches. To return a list of results, however, be sure to include at least a search term or a category. Otherwise the result set will be empty. For suggestions on how to set up your test, see Guidelines for Search Tests.
To specify the test search criteria:
(Optional) In the Details pane of a search test, use one of the following options to select a search configuration in the Search Configuration field:
To test a specific search configuration, click Select Directly and choose a search configuration from the dialog box.
In a multisite environment, you can find search configurations by site on the Browse tab.
To test whether a search configuration is applied for given dimension values, and if so, which one, click Select by Dimension. In the dialog that appears, select the dimension values you want to test.
In a multisite environment, you can select only dimension values from the site you picked in the Search From list.
To test how a search configuration is applied based on a sample user profile, click Select by Dimension and choose a preview profile. The search engine applies the search configuration to the preview profile as it would to a real user profile with the same dimension values.
This option appears only if an administrator has set up preview functionality.
(Optional) To test the results of query text typed by a user, type the text in the Search Text field.
If your site supports multiple languages, select a language from the Search Text Language list. This selection tells the search engine which language the search text is written in. It is not the same as the language dimension value used in search configurations. For more information, see Languages in Search Tests.
Caution: If you choose a search configuration in step 1 that uses a different language than the one you select in the Search Text Language list, any rules in the search configuration that are based on search text are not applied because the languages don’t match. Only result prioritization and rules that apply to all queries are applied.
(Optional) To narrow the search to a category, click Select next to the Category field and choose a category from the dialog.
In a multisite environment, you can find categories by site on the Browse tab.
The Category selection can affect which facet set is applied to the search results. For more information, see Testing Facets.
Note: If you leave both the search text and the category blank, you will not receive any search results.
(Optional) To see how the search criteria are applied to specific catalog items, click Select next to the Track Items field and choose the items you want to track.
In a multisite environment, you can find items by site on the Browse tab.
If you know the ID of the item you want to track, type it in the Track Items field, and use a comma to separate multiple items, as shown in the following figure. If items are indexed by product, enter a product ID, and if items are indexed by SKU, enter the SKU ID—even if the SKUs are grouped by product.
The search test ignores any extra spaces between the item IDs, either before or after the comma, but does not allow extra spaces within an item ID.
(Optional) To test how the search results would appear when sorted, select an option from the Sort By list.
The options available to you depend on the behavior of your Web site. If shoppers can sort by price, for example, you can select that option to see how it impacts the search results. By default, the results list is sorted by relevance score.
Specify the information that you want to see in the test results. See Test Output Types.
(Optional) Click Save to save the test so you can edit it and run it again. For more information, see Saving and Organizing Tests.
Click Search to run the test.
