Using Synonyms, Redirects, and Merchandising with Clerk.io Search

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Using Synonyms, Redirects, and Merchandising with Clerk.io Search Improve your Search functionality to reduce “No Results” and non-converting searches Carlen Wilutis

Synonyms, Redirects, and Merchandising are great tools to further customize your Search Results and functionality. Below is a step-by-step guide for using each feature.

Synonyms

Synonyms can help Clerk.io in recognizing semantic connections between search terms that may not be evident in your data feed. To create a new synonym:

  1. In my.clerk.io, click “Search” > “Synonyms” in the left-side menu, then choose “New Synonym” at the top right to create a new synonym.

  1. Decide the type of synonym you need:

    • Most of the time, you will want to use Uni-directional Synonyms. They create a one-way relationship between a term and its synonyms.

      Example: if you create a Uni-directional synonym for “sweatshirt” and add “jersey” as a synonym, then searching for “sweatshirt” will show results for “jersey”, but “jersey” will not show results for “sweatshirt”.

    • Bi-directional Synonyms, on the other hand create a two-way relationship between the term and each of the synonyms.

      Example: if you create a Bi-directional synonym for “sweatshirt” where the synonyms are “jersey”, “pullover” and “jumper”, when you search for “sweatshirt” you will get results for “sweatshirt”, “jersey”, “pullover” and “jumper”. But when they search for any of the synonyms, for example “jumper”, they will get results for the synonym, “jumper” in this case, and for “sweatshirt”. But not for the rest of them.

  2. Add the search term and its synonyms. You can add several synonyms, separating them with commas.

  3. Save your synonym and wait for the synonyms list to be updated (After making changes to the synonyms, Clerk needs to run a data analyzation before you can see them in your live site).

  4. Access your site and check your new synonym’s effect in the search results.

By strategically utilizing synonyms, you can refine search outcomes and provide users with more accurate and relevant results tailored to their queries.

Learn more about synonyms in Clerk.io by checking our synonyms best practices.

Redirects

Use redirects when you’d like to lead customers to a specific page based on their search queries. For example, if customers search “sale” or “discount”, rather than showing results for “sale”, you may want to lead them to yourstore.com/sale.

  • Just under Synonyms, you’ll find “Redirects” in the left-side menu. Click “New Redirect” to create new content here.

  • Enter the redirect URL on the next page:

  • On the following page, select " Add Another Query", then choose the desired query logic– this is where you decide if the redirected query needs to match exactly to the values you list under “Match”, or if the query just needs to contain the values you set here.

  • Click " Update Redirect" and make sure the toggle on the next page is green to enable.

First, select Merchandising from the left-side menu, and click “New Campaign” at the top right.

…next, name your Merchandising Campaign:

  • In the “Info” section, write a short description that explains how the Merchandising campaign should effect your Search results

  • In the following section, you can schedule your campaign to run until it’s manually disabled, or to only run for a specifically selected time period.

  • Under Triggers , select " When a Search…" or " On All Searches" depending on whether or not you’d like this Merchandising logic to apply to specific results or across your Search functionality.
    • If Merchandising is only to be applied to specific searches, you’ll select whether the query “matches exactly”, “is something like” or “contains” the queries you include.

  • Finally, add the rules you’d like to apply to the results shown with your new Merchandising campaign, for example, always pinning products with a price over €50 to top for searches matching “dresses”, or removing any products in the category “power tools” when the query contains “hammer”.

  • Click “Update Campaign” at the bottom corner, and check the toggle is green on your Campaigns page to be sure your new Search Merchandising campaign is enabled on your store.