1. Configure the catalogue search
According to the Adobe documentation, the settings are under Stores > Settings > Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Catalog Search. For the native search you select OpenSearch as the search engine there. Adobe says the default search returns results for the exact search term. As an alternative Adobe names the Live Search module, which does not limit results to the exact term.
Important settings are Minimal Query Length and Maximum Query Length, which must fit the range of the search engine, and Minimum Terms to Match. The latter decides how many words of a multi-word query must appear in a product. A strict value quickly leads to zero results, a loose one to many unrelated results. Search suggestions and search recommendations are switched on in the same place.
2. Maintain synonyms and search terms
Under Marketing > SEO & Search > Search Synonyms you create synonym groups per store view, for example “sofa, couch”. According to Adobe, this standard feature only applies to the attributes name and SKU. Terms from descriptions or other attributes are not covered.
Under Search Terms you see what customers searched for and can redirect individual terms to a suitable page. Review terms with many searches and few results regularly. They point to missing synonyms, missing products or spellings that your product data does not cover.
- Sort search terms by number of uses and note terms without results.
- For each term decide: synonym group, better product data or a redirect.
- Test Minimum Terms to Match with queries of two and three words.
3. Test the search with a fixed test set
Take ten typical queries. Include a word with a typo, a part of a longer product name, an SKU and a two-word query where one word is in the name and the other in an attribute. Note whether the expected product is among the first results, and repeat the test after every change.
The configuration page says nothing about typo tolerance, so test it yourself with a few misspelled product names.
Example test set
“gardn hose” (typo) · “hose” (part of “garden hose”) · “GH-25-GR” (SKU) · “hose green” (name and colour).
4. When an additional search is worth it
If the catalogue search is still not good enough after tuning, you can add an external search. Compare whether typos, word parts, SKUs and filters work together, how much theme work the integration needs and where search data is processed.
You connect Grumeria to Magento with a product feed and a small widget. For Magento 2 the feed can come straight from your store's public product data via https://grumeria.com/api/magento-feed?shop=your-shop.com, no feed extension needed, or from a feed extension (CSV, XML or Google Shopping). The search finds products despite typos, searches every feed field you mark as searchable and uses your own synonyms. It works without cookies, with data hosted in Frankfurt. You can check your feed for free first.