InstantSearch+ Documentation for WooCommerce
Contents
InstantSearch+ Documentation for WooCommerce ..................................................................................................1
Overview .............................................................................................................................................................1
Analytics ..........................................................................................................................................................2
AutoComplete ..................................................................................................................................................5
Search Results Page (SERP).................................................................................................................................8
Ranking Tab .......................................................................................................................................................9
Synonyms Tab .................................................................................................................................................11
Collections Tab .................................................................................................................................................13
Sync (Indexing)..................................................................................................................................................14
Tabs
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Analytics
AutoComplete
Search Results
Ranking
Synonyms
Categories/Collections
Sync
Overview
InstantSearch+ is bringing an Amazon-like site search to millions of merchants and publishers – at an affordable
cost. Our powerful technology makes it simple for everyone to add a great search to their site: No coding. No
integration. No maintenance. Our highly scalable platform and self-service simplicity allow us to offer all this
goodness at an affordable cost. InstantSearch+ has everything you need to engage users across phones, tablets,
and desktops.
Our search is self-learning. It dynamically improves relevancy of product results and product suggestions based
on many parameters including user's searches, product selection, and product performance. No need to specify
ranking of each and every product. InstantSearch+ will do it automatically in a continuous improvement process.
Your InstantSearch+ is good to go from the moment it finished syncing with your catalog - usually within minutes
of installation. The following documents the reporting, customization, and configuration options available
through the InstantSearch+ Dashboard.
Analytics
This tab present a collection of charts and exportable data to help you analyze your search data with actionable
information:
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How many searches did users run on your site?
What are users searching for?
What do they find?
What don’t they find and why?
1) Analytics Overview Top Search Queries - the most popular search queries on you site.
 Top Search with no Results - Search queries that didn’t have any products matching.
 Did You Mean Search - searches where users had a typo correction and selected the 'did you mean'
suggestion in the search page.
2) Autocomplete Analytics Product Suggests - searches where users selected one of the product suggestions in the drop-down,
leading them directly to the product page. A high percentage of product suggests is usually a good sign,
as it shows that users find what they are looking for very quickly.
 Searches Suggests - searches where users selected a popular search query from the drop down
suggestions. A high percentage of search suggests is usually a good sign, as it shows that users find the
query they meant to type, being reassured of their choice.
 Category Suggests - searches where users selected one of the category suggestions in the drop-down,
leading them directly to the category page.
Time Range - at the upper right hand side, you can control the time range for the chart up to 90 days.
Product Suggest Value - InstantSearch+ computes that value of product suggestions selected by users.
3) All queries and Search Queries with No results - shows a chart with all the search queries on you site.
4) Top Products Viewed Through Search - shows a list of products that users selected one of the product
suggestions in the drop-down or from the search page, leading them directly to the product page.
AutoComplete
While InstantSearch+ automatically copies your site CSS, this tab provides you with the options to configure the
Rich AutoComplete & Product Suggest Drop-Down List. The suggestion list is made out of 3 configurable
components:
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Product and/or Category Suggestions relevant to what the user is looking for.
Popular Searches relevant to what the user is typing.
Banner that can be used for a specific promotion such as a gift card, etc.
General
o Product suggestion position - Top [default] drop down box or Bottom up box.
o Max number of product suggestions -any number between 0-10 [4 is the default].
o Max popular search suggestions - any number between 0-10 [4 is the default].
o Title Language - Auto [default] or force a specific language for product titles.
(This features affects both AutoComplete and Search Results)
o Disable categories suggestions - Unchecked [Default].
o Hide product descriptions - Checked [Default].
o Show non-sellable products in suggestions - Unchecked [Default].
The default is not to show products that are not sellable based on your store inventory management
policy.
o Enable on IE9 and below browsers - InstantSearch+ does not support IE9 and below versions due to
their tiny market share, and the fact that due to these browser technology, auto-completion may
not work 100% of the time. However, due to some customer's requests, we allow to enable service
on these browsers at your own risk. We do not recommend it.
Style
o Text color – when drop down appears
o Hover text color – the color of text after placing the courser over the product.
o Hover background gradient top
o Hover background gradient bottom
o Hover background color (old browsers)
Dropdown Style
o Dropdown background color
o Width (px)
o Max description characters
o Border color
o Border width (px)
o Border radius (px)
o Shadow color
o Display InstantSearch+ Tagline - when checked, it will display "powered-by InstantSearch+"
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Ranked Product Badge image - this is a promotion or "on-sale" badge image that will be shown next to a
ranked product. You can plug instead your own custom image. (See Ranking tab).
o Default Category thumbnail image - in case a category does not have an associated image, this image
will be displayed. Alternatively, you can have your own custom default image, or not have an image
shown at all.
o Default Product thumbnail image - in case a product does not have an associated image, this image will
be displayed . Alternatively, you can have your own custom default image
o Bottom HTML Banner - this optional html banner will be shown at the bottom of the list with every
suggestion. This can be useful for an ongoing promotion, sale, gift card, or any other banner that you
want displayed for any search . For example: <a href="/your-list-goes-here">
o Custom CSS (Advanced Users Only - InstantSearch+ allows adding custom CSS for advanced users at
their own risk...
Pricing Display (This feature affects both AutoComplete & Search Results)
o Display prices - display [default] prices next to products in the list
o Currency - you can choose the currency manually or default will use the site’s currency
o Currency symbol position - displays currency symbol before or after
o Currency conversion rate - conversion rate applied to currency
o Price range format - from min. price, min-max price, max price
o Avoid showing decimal prices - When checked, prices will show as integers only
Search Results Page (SERP)
Search Results – provides you the option to continue using the platform search, or use InstantSearch+
search results.
 Results Page powered by InstantSearch+ when checked will provide your users with InstantSearch+
results instead of the default WordPress search results.
 Show products matching ANY search terms instead of ALL is checked by default, in order to widen
the range of possible results for multiple keyword user queries.
 Disable Typo Correction and "Did You Mean" Suggestions - By default unchecked, as it is
recommended to always have automatic typo correction. Only in special search cases such as SKU
only search where typo correction may not be optimal, it is recommend to check.
 Force searchbox to products-only search
This checkbox can help you configure two important elements:
o Force a product display instead of the standard WordPress line display
o Force product only results, in case you choose to use the native WP results
It is recommended to show products only and use InstantSearch+ results to optimize conversion.
However, if you feel that it is important to show other content than products in search results page, you
should uncheck both "Force search box" and "Results Page powered by InstantSearch+".
Ranking Tab
InstantSearch+ automatically learns relevancy of results and continuously adjust itself to provide the optimal
results for what your users are looking for. However, you do have the option to promote or demote specific
products when there's a good reason for it. It will affect product ranking for both autocomplete and search
results page.
For this, we use 3 simple types of ranking:
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On Match
Always
Never
On Match
On Match ranking will promote the specific product you choose, only when what the user is typing matches a
part of the product ranking, description, etc.
Here's an example. Let's say that you have a shoe store, and you would like to promote a specific Adidas TRX-20
today. You could use the ranking tab to promote this specific product whenever a user starts typing Adidas "OnMatch". It means that as long as what the user is typing is along the line of Adidas TRX-20 - it will show up on top
of the results. If the user is just typing Adidas - it will show up. However is the user continue typing Adidas Rome
- it will not show up as a result, as it is defined only "On Match". This type of promotion is only in the context of
what the user is looking for.
Always
In this case, you can elevate a product to show up in results no matter what users are typing. This type of "bruteforce" suggestion or search result can sometimes work when it is clearly a promotion, such as a gift card, where
users implicitly understand why it's there. However, it can sometimes work against you, if users would perceive
it as an unrelated result to their search.
Never
In some cases, you may want to quickly block a specific product from showing up in search results. Let's say that
there is a defect in a specific product, and you would like to block this product from showing up in results. That's
a quick way of doing it.
Usage
Simply type the product that you would like to rank name in "Search Products", and select On
Match/Always/Never from the drop-down menu.
To cancel ranking, select a product from Current Product Ranking, and choose No from the drop-down menu.
Synonyms Tab
Synonyms
Typically, users are searching for products using product names, brands, SKUs, etc. But that's not always the
case. Sometimes, users search for product using words that the product owners have not imagined them using.
These can be synonyms, antonyms, and even some atypical spelling mistakes.
Here's a classic example. In the flower business, English Roses, is actually a synonym for Long Stemmed Roses.
Most flower product descriptions may only have Long Stemmed Roses. So when a user is looking for English
Roses, the search would typically come back with "No Results Found". However, the smart merchant, who
regularly looks at the Under-Served term list in the Dashboard, will notice a few "English Roses" terms that were
not served. Using the synonym tab, you could easily write:
English Roses, Long Stem Roses
In one line, click the Save Synonyms button, and you are done.
Note: Synonyms apply to both AutoComplete and Search Results page.
TurboLinks
TurboLinks can be a powerful tool to redirect users to another URL, within product suggests
Use Case 1 - Non Product Page
While on most stores, most searches are strictly product searches, there are users who look for non-product info
such as address or contract, etc. Using the TurboLink you can specify the following:
address, contact us the search terms, and then plug www.mysite.com/contact-us.html in the URL and add an
thumbnail URL as well, to be displayed in the suggestion list. Click the "Add new site link" and you are done.
Whenever a user would type "address" or "contact", she would get a suggestion or result leading to
www.mysite.com/contact-us.html
UseCase 2 - Special Page
Another example is a special page that you may create for users such as "Products on Sale". You can associate
the term "sale" with the URL of the new page that you created, so that users who start typing the word "sale"
would get a suggestion to the "Products on Sale" page. A term, such as "sale" in this case, can be associated to
only one page. You can have a number of terms associated to the same page, but cannot have one term
associated to more than a single page.
Collections Tab
InstantSearch+ automatically make category suggestions based on your product categories. You could
select not to suggest some or all categories, based on your knowledge of what your users are searching for.
In general, it is best to lead users directly to products rather than a category.
Sync (Indexing)
Sync (Indexing) Tab
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Catalog Sync - To deliver instant result at lightning speed, InstantSearch+ syncs with your store catalog.
It does this the first time you install InstantSearch+, and then it updates whenever you make changes to
your catalog: adding, deleting, or updating products. Sync frequency depends on your service plan, and
can vary from 7 days to immediate on demand. Once you sync you products, you should wait a few
minutes to override caching, until you see the changes taking effect. Sync affects both rich
autocomplete and search results page.
o Site Name - This is the name of your site on the InstantSearch+ dashboard. As a default, it is the URL
of your live site, but you can change it.
o Site URL - This is the actual URL of your live site, to which the service is provided. If you are moving
DNS, or changing from dev to production - you should change the URL to the new site.
o Platform - That is your eCommerce platform First Sync - This is the first time your store catalog
synced with InstantSearch+
o Extension Version - InstantSearch+ Extension/Plugin/App version installed on your site
o Platform Version - The eCommerce platform version used by your store
o Status –
1. Synced - all you products are updated in our database.
2. Product sync in progress- when pressing the sync button or an update depending on your plan.
3. Extension uninstalled / Extension deactivated – if you this is the status you see go to the plug-in page
and make sure that you have InstantSearch+ installed and activated.
Sync (Indexing) Configuration
To optimize search results relevancy, InstantSearch+ is tuned specifically for every eCommerce
platform. InstantSearch+ indexes the optimal type of terms so that it brings the most relevant terms.
However, different stores sometimes have different search patterns, which InstantSearch+ can be
configured to follow. As a principle, you aim to minimize the type of terms, to have optimal results. This
is the default configuration. However, there are cases where it makes sense to add other types of
terms, primarily depending on the ways that users are conducting their searches. For example, consider
a case where the store is used mostly by sales reps rather than consumers. Sales reps tend to search by
SKUs. Therefore, you may want to enable "Search by SKU". The following is a list of what you could
allow your users to search by. Remember that less checked items is generally better than more.
WooCommerce
o Product Description [Unchecked by Default]
o Product Short Description [Checked by Default]