In this article you'll find: 

Boost Values in Fields

The "Boost Values" found in the Field Administration section of the workbench are values that are assigned to queriable fields that add weight the the relevancy of the field in any given search. These values can be used to ensure that results are being influenced more by the fields deemed more valuable than the fields that contain information that is not as pertinent. We strongly suggest any configuration changes are made in the staging environment and compared to the live site results before making changes in manage.

Making a Field Queriable

In order to assign a boost value, you must make sure the corresponding field has been configured to be included in the query. These are the fields that the engine will search for matches in for any executed search term or phrase and would have originally been configured during implementation. Fields that are most commonly used in the query are name, category/department, color, brand and sku. Some fields you may want to avoid including in the query are size, and fields containing many words such as long description. 

1) To quickly identify which fields are being used in the query, navigate to the Field Administration page by selecting Workbench from the top navigation

2) Then, select Data Configuration in left navigation and choose Fields from the sub-categories.

3) In the list of fields, locate "Query" in the header and click twice to sort by queriable fields. All fields that have been turned on to query will be sorted to the top.

4) To include or exclude a field from the query, click on the green pencil icon next to the field that you wish to modify. 

1) Once you have navigated to the field you would like to make queriable navigate to the section titled "Advanced".

2) The first field asks you to indicate whether Hawk Search should "Query this field?" To include the field in the query, switch the toggle to "yes" and save your changes. 

Assigning a Boost Value

Once a field is set to be included in the query, you will be give the option to assign a boost value. This will determine how much weight the field should hold within the query.  

1) To adjust the boost, use the slider to indicate the weight you would like to be associated with the field. You will be able to select values starting with one and going up to 200. We recommend a value higher than 1 on a field or two that you see as most relevant, for example "name." 

2) Once you have added a boost to a couple of fields, build a new index and test it out before continuing to boost fields.