There are so many wonderful features and programs embedded within the Shopify tool for eCommerce sites. What you maybe did not know is that there are several different ways to customize and personalize your Shopify search settings. Let’s take a look at all the options available to you.
What to Know
The Shopify search engine has a variety of default settings embedded within the programming. This means that there are settings that determine what products are visible to the customers based on the words they use to search. Additionally, there are tons of customization options available to you, the Shopify eCommerce site owner, to best optimize the search engine’s capacity to yield specific results. The feature location where you can make these customizations are within the “search.liquid” setting. There are three different methods of editing the default settings you should know about:
- Types: this means the content available on the site that a customer would see when searching.
- Product availability: this term refers to whether items are visible on the site based on their availability. This setting can be altered within the “unavailable_products” feature.
- Partial word match: this refers to how the keywords searched can have the ability to yield related results based on the last word typed.
Each of these Shopify search settings has a default setting capable of being customized.
The Default Settings
Let’s take a look at the default settings that come automatically within the Shopify search engine feature.
Types
The “types” search setting has three options for customization:
- Product: the items available for purchase on your site.
- Page: the pages online that relate to the keyword that was searched.
- Article: articles or blogs written about the keyword that was searched.
The default setting for this section within Shopify is “product, page, article.” This means that every single item or content available on your site will populate based on the word typed. If you’d like your search engine to have a more specific search, you’d want to edit this feature.
Product Availability
Product availability refers to the products that are available on the site. It also refers to whether or not the customers can see those products when they search for them. By going to the “unavailable_products” section, you can edit the Shopify search settings for this feature.
The options within this category are:
- Show: is a set selection that sorts the results by relevance
- Hide: this setting will show products based on relevance, but will also hide all the unavailable products from view.
- Last: this setting displays all relevant products in the results section, followed by the unavailable products.
The “last” setting is the default setting. It is important to note that if you do not want the “last” setting to be the way results populate after a search, the adjustments will need to be made accordingly.
Partial Word Match
The partial word match is an interesting setting within Shopify. You have the ability to turn this search feature on, yet the default setting comes with it automatically being turned off. Let’s explain what this function does.
Through “search.liquid” you can change the partial word match settings so that options related to the last word typed will populate. For example, if you were to type “beach towel,” you would get a variety of options also related to the word “towel.” Here are some examples:
- Sand towel
- Colorful towel
- Large towel
By turning this setting on, your customers have more options made available to them besides the words searched. The two options for settings within this category are:
- Last: This option turns the feature on for partial word match.
- None: no partial word match is made available.
Shopify Search Engine Improvements
There are many potential advantages to making the adjustments in the following categories within your Shopify search feature. Let’s take a look:
1. Types
By editing this section you have the ability to decide what content your customers get to view. If you want them to only look at products for purchase, you get to decide that. If you want your customers to look at everything your eCommerce site has to offer, you can activate every possible type as a result.
2. Product Availability
With customizations in this setting, you have the free reign to showcase all of your content. If you’d like to display what’s available and unavailable, you have that option. Perhaps you don’t want your customers to see what’s unavailable. If that’s the case, you can adjust the settings so they can only view what’s available to them.
3. Partial Word Match
This category of customization is arguably the most important. By editing this feature, you can allow multiple different search results to appear based on the last word within the searched keywords. This increases the amount of content a single customer could view.
Get The Most
With amazing customization options, you can truly get the most out of your Shopify search engine’s features. Make the adjustments to optimize your search bar today!
