The Search Merchandising feature enables commerce sites to customize search results based on site initiatives and customer purchasing patterns. A merchandiser uses Oracle ATG Web Commerce Merchandising to create search configurations, which are sets of rules that determine the order of search results and which items are excluded from the results.

Search configurations are stored in the RefinementRepository (along with the refinement configurations used for Faceted Search), and are included by Oracle ATG Web Commerce Search when the product catalog is indexed. When a site visitor issues a search query, Oracle ATG Web Commerce platform components determine which search configuration to use, and include this information with the query. When Search returns the results from the query, it applies the rules in the search configuration to those results.

This chapter describes the query-side services involved in Search Merchandising. It includes the following sections:

For more information about Search Merchandising, including details about creating search configurations, see the ATG Merchandising Guide for Business Users and the ATG Merchandising Administration Guide.