In Search Merchandising, you can influence the order of search results by configuring the three most significant factors:
Search term relevance
Search term property match
Property prioritization
If the purpose of a search engine is to locate the results that match the search text, the best results are those in which the search text appears and appears often. For example, if you search for “hand blender,” you can expect that the product with the most mentions of “hand blender” to be the first in the results list. Similarly, if the search dictionary defines “automated chopper” as a synonym for “hand blender,” products described as automated choppers might also be returned in the result set, although it’s likely they’ll appear after products that use the exact search term. This behavior is governed by a factor called search term relevance, which also takes into account word order and linguistic usage. When no search configurations or facets are defined, ATG Search uses search term relevance to determine the ordering of the result set.
Whereas search term relevance orders results by evaluating the overall usages of the search text, the second factor, search term property match, orders products based on the appearance of the search terms in specific property values. For example, if the Display name property has a high priority, the product that has “handle blender” in its Display name might appear among the first results in the list. When you use search term property match, you specify rankings to specific properties.
Unlike the other two factors, for property prioritization, the search text less relevant. You use property prioritization to promote certain products by identifying properties and values and supplying rankings that will control the placement of products with those property values. For example, you might give a high ranking to a particular brand or a low ranking to products that are backordered.
The following sections provide instructions for working with search term relevance, search term property match, and property prioritization:
Determine the influence of each factor relative to others. See Assigning Percentage Weights.
For property prioritization, provide rankings to specific properties and weightings to property values. See Specifying the Priority of Properties.
For search term property match, provide rankings to searchable properties. See Ranking of Searchable Properties.
Copy settings from an existing resource. See Copying Result Prioritization Settings from Another Search Configuration.
Inherit settings from a Base Search Configuration. See Applying Inherited Result Prioritization Settings.
