Magento Search and Tips on How to Work With It

If you’re working in the eCommerce field, you may have heard about Magento® search before. That’s because the tool is a necessary feature for any site to have a great user experience; that said, not many have taken the time to describe it or how it works. That’s why we’ve created this guide to tell you more about how to improve your search for the store.

How Does Magento Search Bar Works?

To get started, we should discuss how Magento Search works in the first place.

Search Features

Magento Search features include the use of synonyms; thereby, optimizing your functionality. You can also take advantage of the search’s SEO features, which will allow you to rank higher in Google.

Here is a list of the features you may find with Magento Search:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Synonyms
• Language processing
• URL redirect management
• Product promotion

Types of Search in Magento

There are several kinds of searches exist and.each one has its own benefits. You can use the full-text search, which does not provide a partial match for searches. This search option will provide your customers with results that best match their search, though, because it determines which products are most appropriate for specific keywords.

Next, there’s combined search. It will allow your customers to find products that match partially with a keyword. Because of this, your customers can find products that don’t match a specific keyword, but that they can browse a specific product name.

You can use flexible searches. These will provide your customers with matches depending on a word they search. If they search the word bed, for example, they may find bedding as a partial match.

A sorted search result will show your customers exact matches. In comparison to flexible searches, a sorted search result will not show you the word bedding if you search bed; rather, it’ll only show you results with the word bed.

Magento Search Settings

It has a number of settings that will help your customers to find their products more efficiently. We specified those settings below and for sure, they can greatly improve Magento Search and user experience at your store.

Quick Search

This search feature allows as the name suggests, your customers to search quickly. It installs a search box in the top right corner of your store; wherein, your customers can type keywords or products. If you own a clothing store; for example, they can type “yellow top” to view a list of yellow tops.

Advanced Search Settings

Your customers can use Magento’s advanced search setting to find products with more restrictive parameters. If there’s a maximum price you’re willing to pay, you can enter it here to show results that are within your range. You’ll also have parameters like the following: Name, SKU, Description, Short Description, etc.

Weighted Search

A weighted search will allow you, the eCommerce business owner, to put a specific weight to product characteristics in Magento product search. These characteristics will have weights that range from 1 to 10, 10 being the highest. This means that if you rate “color” at a 7 and “size” at a 4, a search for a “green shirt” will show shirts that have the color green listed as an attribute. In doing so, you’ll allow your customers to find the products they want more quickly.

Configuring Search in Magento 2

Now that you know a little more about Magento Search, we can tell you all about Magento search configuration.

Configuring Magento Search

Before we get into how you can configure different features of Magento Search, you should know how to configure the tool itself.

1. Go to your admin panel.
2. Drag your mouse to the far right part of your screen. Here, you should have a section called Stores. When you run your mouse over it, you’ll see a drop-down menu.
3. Scroll down the drop-down menu until you see Configuration. Click on it.

Configure Catalog Search

1. Stay at Configuration.
2. Now, you should have a section that says “Catalog Search”. Click on it.
3. From here, you can configure the following: minimal query length, maximum query length, search engine (MySQL).
4. Remember to save.

Configure Popular Search Terms

Your search terms are already enabled on your site; that said, you’ll have to connect it to your catalog search. This will allow you to rank higher on search engines.

1. You’ll have to go to the Stores section and press Settings.
2. Click on Catalog.
3. Click on Catalog again.
4. Now, you should find the section titled Search Engine Optimization. You can choose to enable or disable this.

Magento Custom Search Module

Magento Search module will set your store apart from all the others. Below, you can read about different custom modules to ensure that your customers are having the best experience they can.

Layered Navigation Extension by Mageworx

This module is popular for a number of reasons; for example, it’s SEO friendly. Because of this, your website will rank higher in search engines than it would otherwise. Not only this, but you can install different category characteristics on your site so that your customers will be able to narrow down their searches. Customers will be able to select multiple characteristics so that if your customers are looking for shirts that are white or/and blue, they can select these colors to narrow down their search.

ElasticSearch by Amasty

This search module will allow your customers to search for products more accurately. This will be done by finding synonyms when your customers search so that while they might enter the weird “shirt”, products that have “top” as a description may pop up. This feature will make your store more flexible and allow customers to find the products they want – even when they don’t have the exact words to find them.

Google Custom Search Pro by CommerceExtensions

This extension is known for improving the SEO of Magento stores. In doing so, you can expect your store to rank higher in Google than others and to increase your exposure.

The major benefit of this extension is that it can work with any store and you don’t have to change your template for it to do so. It also supports a multi-store environment and comes with a manual so that you can get the most out of your store.

How to Create Any Custom Module in Magento

If the above modules aren’t exactly what you’re looking for, you may have your own Magento custom search query. To create your custom module, use following the following steps:

1. Disable your cache in Magento. This is not necessary but we do suggest it for the optimal experience.
2. Run to a developer mode. If you don’t know how to do this, you can simply go to your terminal. From here, go to Magento 2 root and run this command: php bin/magento deploy:mode:set developer
3. Create a folder. Here, you’ll have to name your module. It should be named VendorName_ModuleName.
4. From here, you’ll have to create an etc/module.xml file. Create an etc folder once you’re done.
5. Your next step is to create the etc/registration.php file.
6. Enable your new module.
7. Create a controller

If you want to know more about how to create a custom Magento module, follow our step-by-step guide.