Best Practices & Tips

The Right Tool for the Job

Autocomplete is made up of multiple sections that can each be turned on or off. Not all of the sections will display all of the time. The sections that display depend on the configuration of Autocomplete as well as the keyword typed by the user and the matches founds in Hawksearch.

Recommendations in Autocomplete

When the user clicks into the search bar, before typing anything, you have the option to display recommended products and categories:

Open

1. Trending Products
   These recommended products are driven by Trending Items Recommendations strategy and you must have Recommendations module enabled in order to use this feature. This is configured within the Top Product Matches section.

2. Trending Facets
   Trending Facets are driven by the most popular categories/facet selections that your site visitors have recently clicked on. This is configured within the Top Facets section.

Matching Suggestions in Autocomplete

When the user starts typing, matching values will start to display to the user:

Open

1. Top Facets
   This section will suggest values from facets to your user. The values will match the keyword entered and can pull from multiple facets, not only categories (i.e. color, brand, department, etc). Clicking on one of these facet values will display all the records that have that facet value. For example, the user types “camp” and “Camp Furniture - Chairs” is a value suggested from the Category facet. When the user clicks on “Charis,” the result page will display all records in the Chairs category.

2. Popular Searches
   This section will suggest keywords that other users have searched that match the user’s keyword so far. Clicking on of these terms will initiate a search for the keyword clicked on. For example, if the user types “camp” and “camping chair” is suggested popular search. When the user clicks on “camping chair” the result page will display the search results for the keyword, “camping chair.”

3. Top Product Matches
   Product records are used on sites that display, and often sell, products. If your site is content-only, this section will not apply to you. This section will display products that match the keyword that has been entered so far. These products would be the first products in the search results if the search was executed without any further characters in the search bar.

4. Top Content Matches
   Content records are used on sites that index records like pages, articles, videos, blog posts, etc. If your site is products-only, this section will not apply to you. This section will display content records that match the keyword that has been entered so far. These would be the first content records in the search results if the search was executed without any further characters in the search bar.

Did You Mean? in Autocomplete

1. Did You Mean in Autocomplete will offer keyword suggestions to the user when no results are found. For example, if the user types “purple” and no results are found.

2. DYM suggests other keywords that may be what the user meant to type. Clicking on of these terms will initiate a search for the keyword clicked on. When the user clicks on “purple” from the DYM suggestions, the result page will display the search results for the keyword, “purple.” These words are pulled from the custom dictionary that is built by the data pulled from the fields configured to contribute to the dictionary.

Autocomplete Configuration Page

1. To navigate to the Autocomplete Configuration section, click on the "Workbench" tab in the top navigation.

2. Next, select "Keyword Search" from the left navigation.

3. From the list of subcategories, select "Autocomplete.”

4. The Top Facets section indicates if it is enabled and lists the facets that are included in Autocomplete. To modify the configuration of the Top Facets (a.k.a. “Top Categories”), click on Update Top Facets button.

5. The Popular Searches section indicates if it is enabled and the maximum number of popular searches that could be returned in Autocomplete. To modify the configuration of the Popular Searches (a.k.a. “Keywords”), click on Update Popular Searches button.

6. The Top Product Matches section indicates if it is enabled and the maximum number of products that could be returned in Autocomplete. To modify the configuration of the Top Product Matches, click on Update Top Product button.

7. The Top Content Matches section indicates if it is enabled and the maximum number of content records that could be returned in Autocomplete. To modify the configuration of the Top Content Matches, click on Update Top Content button.

8. The Did You Mean? In Autocomplete section indicates if it is enabled and the maximum number of suggestions that could be returned in Autocomplete. To modify the configuration of the DYM, click on Update Did You Mean button.

9. If you need to modify the Layout or Label properties, click on the Layout tab. This includes updating the labels that can be displayed to users.

Configuring Autocomplete Sections

Top Facets

1. To enable Top Products, turn on Is Enabled.

2. To enable Trending Categories in Autocomplete, turn on Enable Trending Categories.

3. Set the number of characters at which you want the trending categories to stop being suggested. You can specify up to 3.

4. Review the list of facets and select the ones that you would like to have displayed. Turn on the radio button next to the ones you want displayed.

5. Select how many (maximum) from each facet you want displayed.

6. Make sure to click “Save” after setting up the Top Facets configuration.

Popular Searches

Popular keywords can be used to prompt the user in Autocomplete. When enabled, these words will be returned in Autocomplete when the keyword qualifies as popular .

1. The Top Queries section is where this section of Autocomplete is turned on or off, as well as how many (maximum) suggested Popular Searches will be displayed to the user.

2. The Auto-Generated Popular Searches will be defined by the Date Range and the Min # of Searches that are configured here.

3. Clicking “Show top 50 Matching Keywords” button will allow you to see some of the keywords that fall within the popular searches, as configured.

4. Terms that you want to exclude from ever appearing as popular can be entered in the Exclude Terms section. These keywords will not display as popular, even if they are.

5. Terms that you want to manually include in the popular keywords can be entered in the Popular Search Terms section. These keywords will display if they match the characters entered by the user, even if they are not popular.

6. Make sure to click “Save” after setting up the Popular Searches configuration.

Top Product Matches

1. To enable Trending Products in Autocomplete, turn on Enable Trending Items.

2. The Trending Products are designed to display after clicking the search bar, but before the user starts to type. Select the point at which you want the Trending Products to no longer be shown, and only the Top Products will display (if any).

3. Select the time period that should be used when determining the Trending Products.

4. To enable Top Products, turn on Is Enabled.

5. Set the number of results that you would like your user to see. You can specify up to five.

6. You have the ability to set HTML here to control the display of the results. Hawksearch strongly recommends that you only allow developers with experience in HTML to make these adjustments.

7. If you are searching products as well as content in your Hawksearch engine, use the Product Selection to indicate which records are product records.

8. Set the Field Mappings so that the appropriate field values are returned to your front-end for the product records, so that your Autocomplete can display the correct values.

9. Make sure to click “Save” to save your settings.

Top Content Matches

1. To enable Top Content Matches, turn on Is Enabled.

2. Set the number of content results that you would like your user to see. You can specify up to five.

3. You have the ability to set HTML here to control the display of the results. Hawksearch strongly recommends that you only allow developers with experience in HTML to make these adjustments.

4. Use the Product Selection to indicate which records are content records.

5. Set the Field Mappings so that the appropriate field values are returned to your front-end for the content records, so that your Autocomplete can display the correct values.

6. Make sure to click “Save” to save your settings.

Did You Mean? In Autocomplete

1. To enable Did You Mean in Autocomplete, turn on Is Enabled.

2. Set the number of maximum suggestions that can be offered to the user. You can specify up to five.