Product database
New in NG 3.0
New feature: Prevent zero-hit suggestions . The expanded scope of the ranking rules makes it possible to exclude products from the suggestion without generating zero-hit suggestions.
Active (1) | If Active is checked, the sources configured below will be played in the Suggest. |
Prevent zero-hit suggestions (2) | Enable to use search ranking rules and suggest ranking rules to avoid null-match suggestions. Disable to use only suggest ranking rules for this. Application example: |
Limit the fields used in the product database (3) | Check to search only the "Product Name" field and fields configured in "Additional Search Data". Otherwise, all searchable fields will be searched. If the function is active, it speeds up the suggestion and prevents, for example, unwanted brand suggestions for products whose search term was only found in the description. The feature is not active by default because it can lead to discrepancies between suggest and search results. |
Product data field (4) | Select a field whose data the Suggest should use. |
Type of Suggestion (5) | Select the Suggest type. Standard types are productName , brand , category and searchTerm. |
Add source field (6) | Add the selected field and its suggest type to the import. Further settings for the source fields are made under. |
How to add new Suggest for Source field
Each Suggest Type except the search terms requires data from the product data feed. Because of this you need to import the corresponding field to generate suggestions. For example: if the manufacturer field is missing from the suggest import, no manufacturer suggestions are displayed.
In addition, suggest can access the search behavior of users to produce relevant results. This section teaches you, which product data Suggest consider and how to configure it.
Please make sure that you have created all Suggest types you beforehand, so you can supply them with data.
1. Go to Suggest Import Settings
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From the menu bar, got to More settings… → Suggest → Suggest import.
2. Assign Product Data Fields to the Suggest Types
Usually, pre-existing Suggest Types (2) already have product data fields (1) assigned to them. This association can be customized further. Enter edit configuration mode to do so.
3. Add additional source fields (optional)
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You can add any number of source fields with Add Source Field button (3). For example, if you have added further suggest types or if you want to add more product fields to existing types.
4. Decide whether to consider the Search History for Suggest
Suggest also draws data from the logfiles of the last days. The setting Search history lets you decide, how many should be included in the import.
Deactivate this option to remove user-generated search terms from the suggestions.
5. Make more Customisations
a. Decide what to do with multiples of product recommendations (optional)
By default, duplicates of existing products are removed from the suggestions. You can stop this by removing the check mark (1) or decide to remove duplicates only within a suggest type (2).
b. Adjust Prioritization (optional)
Normally, suggestions are ordered by FactFinder similarity. If this option is active, the order is instead decided by frequency of use.
c. Choose Import Settings (optional)
These options directly influence the import:
Min. amount of records: Represents the minimum number of imported suggestions needed for the suggest import to be considered successful. Please note that product suggestions aren't imported during the suggest import if the setting 'Response with product suggestions from search database' is active.
Trim Whitespace: Removes spaces from the beginning and end of the entry, as well as duplicate spaces between terms.
Remove HTML code: Replaces HTML code with a space and decodes the HTML elements. Start and end tags are removed completely, multiple tags are replaced with spaces.
Replace special characters with ISO counterparts: All special characters are replaced with ISO characters.
Deduplicate field values: Duplicate values are removed from the return data, so they are unique.
Deduplicate suggest search content: Removes duplicates from additional search data fields.
Import on startup: Import this channel on system startup. Even if it is activated by default, the setting has no effect and cannot be edited if the global import on startup module is deactivated.
Import suggest in product import interval: By setting this checkbox a Suggest import is conducted along with the product data in its update interval.
6. Consider their ranking rules
By setting the hook at Use ranked search database (10), their ranking rules will be included in the Suggest.
7.Save Changes
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Select Confirm button on the left to save changes made and close transaction. Confirmation is required.
- Backup comment adding would be prompted, to ease the identification of the backup later.
Select Revert button on the right to revert changes made and close the transaction. Confirmation is required.
Please note: Suggest data has to be re-imported for changes to become active.
Suggest Data Manual Import
Like the Search Database, the Suggest database is usually updated automatically, making a manual import only necessary for configuration changes.
Activating calculation of result numbers and displaying preview images is very resource intensive during suggest import. It should therefore not be performed during peak activity periods!
1. Go to Import
In the menu bar, go to Import.
2. Choose a Channel
Choose a channel from the dropdown menu or select All Channels.
3. Select SUGGEST
From the left-hand dropdown menu, select Suggest.
4. Start Import
Fact-Finder re-imports the data based on your Suggest configurations.
Version 2.0 and earlier
Which NG version do I use?
Product database
Use ranked search database (1) | If enabled, your ranking rules will be taken into account in the suggest. |
Product data field (2) | Select a field whose data the Suggest should use. |
Type of suggestion (3) | Select the Suggest type. Standard types are productName , brand , category and searchTerm. |
Add source field (4) | Add the selected field and its suggest type to the import. |
Product data field (5) | Overview of the product data fields used. You can make changes directly in edit mode. |
Suggest type (6) | Overview of the suggested types used. You can make changes directly in edit mode. |
Additional search data (7) | Add another product data field. |
Additional return dates (8) |
Remove search history and duplicates
In addition to its own search database, Suggest also gets its data from the log files of the last few days. You can use search history (1) to determine how many should be included in the import. If you do not want search terms from shop visitors to be displayed as suggestions, you can deactivate this source .
By default, duplicates are removed (2) . You can prevent this behavior by disabling the function or customize it by changing the mode. The options are:
based on the entire list of suggestions |
based on proposals of the same type |
Advanced priority determination, determination of the exact number of results and preview images & suggest import settings
By default, the priorities for the suggestions are determined by the NG similarity. If the extended priority determination (1) is active, the priority for each suggestion is instead determined during the import process by the frequency of use and is linearly downgraded within the type. You set the maximum downgrading yourself.
To determine the exact number of results and preview images (2), a search database is used by default, taking the ranking into account. If this is not desired, the setting can be deactivated here.
For the Suggest import settings (3) you have the following customization options:
Reduce whitespace characters | Removes spaces at the beginning and end of the entry as well as multiple spaces between terms. |
Remove HTML code | Replaces HTML code with a space and decodes the HTML elements. Start and end tags are completely removed, multiple tags are replaced with a space. |
Convert special characters to ISO characters if necessary | Special characters such as typographic quotation marks are converted to ISO characters. |
Deduplicate field values | Multiple-occurring values in the return data are deduplicated, i.e. removed, so that they only occur once. |
Deduplicate content of the suggest search | This function removes duplicates from the additional search data fields. |
Import at system startup | If active, your suggest database will be imported at system startup. |
Please note that the settings made here will only take effect after the Suggest data has been imported again.
