How site search works
Knowing how a query is read helps you decide which fix a problem needs: a synonym, a redirect, a filled-in attribute, or nothing at all. This article explains the steps every search goes through, how results are grouped and ordered, and what happens when a query finds nothing.
You can watch every step on a real query in the How the query was read panel of the Playground.
The steps of a search
Every query goes through the same steps. The Playground lists the ones that ran, each with a colored dot: green means the step changed something, amber means it recovered an answer by compromising, and grey means it passed through without touching the query.
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Normalize | Lowercases the query and removes accents and punctuation. Very long queries are cut to the first 12 words, and the step says which words were ignored. |
| Redirects | Checks your redirects first. If one matches, the search stops here and returns the target page or category instead of results. |
| Synonyms | Applies your synonyms. A synonym can rewrite a word or turn it into a filter. Longer terms apply before shorter ones, so hooded sweatshirt wins over sweatshirt. |
| Typo tolerance | Corrects misspelled words against the values and words your catalog actually contains, and then applies synonyms again to the corrected words. |
| Price | Reads price requests such as under 50 or cheapest. A limit becomes a filter; a word like cheapest only changes the order and hides nothing. |
| Attribute extraction | Recognizes attribute values in the query, such as a color, a size, a gender or a category, and turns them into filters. Words like without or no exclude a value instead. |
| Alternative values | Shows when the query named more than one value of the same attribute, such as two colors, and how they were combined. |
| Transcode | Converts sizes written in another scale into the sizes your catalog uses. |
| Text match | Searches the words left over after extraction in product names, descriptions and attributes. |
| Zero-result recovery | If nothing matches, relaxes the query step by step. See Recovery when nothing matches. |
| Negations | Tells you how many products an exclusion left out only because the attribute isn't filled in on them. |
| Relevance tiers | Counts the results in each tier. See Relevance tiers. |
| Ranking | Orders the results. See How results are ordered. |
The Understood as box above the steps sums up the result: each filter appears as attribute = value (or without value), and whatever is left as free text appears as text.
Relevance tiers
Nucleo sorts every match into one of three tiers, depending on where and how the words were found. A product in a lower tier never appears above a product in a higher tier.
| Tier | Label | When a product lands here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | T1 · Exact | Every word of the query is in the fields that say what the product is, such as its name, brand or code, with no typo correction. |
| 2 | T2 · Strong | Every word is there, but in any searchable field, and small typos are tolerated. |
| 3 | T3 · Weak | Only part of the query matches. These products fill the page when the stricter tiers don't. |
When a query turns entirely into filters, there's no text left to match: the results are simply the products that satisfy the filters.
How results are ordered
Within the results, Nucleo applies these criteria in a fixed order. Each one only decides between products that are equal on the ones before it.
- Relevance tier: Exact, then Strong, then Weak.
- Availability: products you can buy come before low-stock products, and both come before out-of-stock products. You can also hide out-of-stock products.
- Exact label: products whose value matches the searched word exactly come before looser matches.
- Price, only when the shopper asked for an order such as
cheapest. - Commercial score: a score built from the product's own figures, such as sales, sell-through, season, sizes in stock, time in the catalog, audience and carry-over.
The order itself isn't configurable. You influence it through what feeds it: stock, synonyms, filled-in attributes and the out-of-stock setting.
Recovery when nothing matches
When the full query finds nothing, Nucleo doesn't give up at once:
- It drops the filters one at a time, least important first, and searches again. Gender and age are never dropped: a men's search doesn't quietly become a women's one.
- If the free text is what blocks the search, it answers with the filters alone and says so.
- It offers the alternatives it found, each with its number of products, so the shopper can pick one.
The Playground always tells you when recovery happened, for example No results for the full query — relaxed color: Red. A query that still finds nothing shows Zero results, even after recovery and appears in Queries.
AI Mode
Some searches read like a question, such as a warm jacket for a rainy city break. When Nucleo recognizes one, it offers an answer in words built from your catalog instead of a plain list. This is AI Mode.
AI Mode starts only when the shopper presses Enter, never while they type. Normal search keeps running as they type. You can try it in the Playground.
Considerations for site search
- Each language has its own search. A query is read with the words, synonyms and values of the language you search in.
- Only products that can be sold on a channel and have a title are searchable. Drafts don't appear.
- Rules take effect on the next search. There's nothing to publish.