Search Synonyms

Note:

With the 21.1 release of NetSuite, menu navigation for the following applications have changed as listed below:

  • Setup > SuiteCommerce Advanced > One-Way Synonyms has changed to Commerce > Marketing > Search > One-Way Synonyms.

  • Setup > SuiteCommerce Advanced > Group Synonyms has changed to Commerce > Marketing > Search > Group Synonyms.

See Commerce Tab.

The Synonyms feature lets you define variants of terms in your product catalog. With synonyms, shoppers can use familiar search terms and receive expanded results. A search for a term, also searches for that term's synonyms. Therefore, synonyms eliminate the need for you to try and include all terms and their possible variants in item records.

For example, the shopper searches for pants. However, trousers is more commonly used in your catalog. For pants to yield any results, you could add it as a keyword for every relevant item, but that is a time-consuming task. With Synonyms, you make one entry to define pants as a synonym for trousers. When visitors search for pants the search results returns pants and trousers.

Note:

When you define search synonyms, make sure the terms are included in fields you configured as search fields with a Keyword match type. This is necessary because only indexed search fields are included in the search.

For example, consider you define purple, magenta, violet, and lavender as synonyms so shoppers can find the nearest shade of the item. You can use the defined search synonym only if the product color is specified in the Product Description field, and you configured the Product Description field as a search field with a Keyword match type.

Types of Search Synonyms

You can define two types of search synonyms in NetSuite:

  • Group Synonym — A group synonym is a collection of synonyms that produce the same search results for all the terms defined in the group.

    For example, if sneakers, trainers, and shoes are defined as group synonyms (sneakers, trainers, running shoes), searching for any one of these terms triggers a search for each and every group synonym.

  • One-way Synonym — A one-way synonym works in one direction to produce search results.

    For example, if candy is a one-way synonym to sweets (sweets –> candy), searching for sweets triggers a search for its one-way synonym candy. However, searching for candy does not trigger a search for sweets. If you want the synonym to return results in both directions, you need to define sweets and candy as group synonyms.

Related Topics

General Notices