Search is a bit random

Hello,
1.5.4

The search function at our site seems to be selective in what it searches for. For example here is one of our product titles:

Phillip Lim Fuschia Medium Pashli Satchel

A search for Phillip does not bring the above item up - but does bring up another "Phillip Lim" bag
But a search for Fuschia will bring the above bag up.
a search for Pashli does bring up the bag.
But a search for Medium doesn't...

The above is just a sample - it's not just that item - it's across the board.

The word "leather" won't bring anything up in both the regular and advanced search - though many products have the word leather in the title.

Descriptions don't seem to get searched at all - regardless if the checkbox is on or not.

Phillip Lim Fuschia Medium Pashli Satchel

http://hgbagsonline.com/cart/shoes-c-20/

Thanks

When I search you site for:
**Phillip Lim Fuschia Medium Pashli Satchel
**

it comes up as 4th on the list ... :lookaroun

I notice similar results on my site from time to time. Search is supposed to search the title and descriptions, yet sometimes returns no results for words that are being used, or misses products where the word is used.

Also, when multiple results are returned, I'd like Zen Cart to list those with the word in the title ahead of those with the word in the description only.

Search results are not weighted ...

Just grasping at straws here but, have you tried it after switching back to classic template? I've seen stranger things from store-bought templates.
Also, if this was an upgrade is it possible that some items were entered as non-utf while others were?

Thanks for replies,

Linda - the point I'm making is if you search for any of the words individually from the title not all the words will bring back that product - so, yes, a search for Phillip Lim Fuschia Medium Pashli Satchel brings back the right product BUT just a search for "medium" does not bring back that product. As another example the word leather doesn't bring up any products - but there are many products in the store with the word leather in the title.

It was an upgrade from 1.3.5 to 1.5.4 and it uses the Genesis template.

eyeb:

It was an upgrade from 1.3.5 to 1.5.4 and it uses the Genesis template.

Hence the question I posted above. Since we only see the resultant code, we have no idea how the template is performing the search or even if it is different from the standard search. We know it's not giving standard Zen Cart search results.

A quick swap to classic template and a search could help us help you.

Lat9 has come up with changes for my shop such that products with the search item in the title appear before those with the item in the description. Yippee!

When you search for something like 'air-spool' in Google it returns results for 'air-spool', 'air spool' and 'airspool'. Could the integral search in Zen Cart do this? It would be great if the search in Zen Cart could behave more like Google does. Because these days shop users use search a lot, and they expect Google type functionality because that's what they're most familiar with.

lloyd_borrett:

When you search for something like 'air-spool' in Google it returns results for 'air-spool', 'air spool' and 'airspool'. Could the integral search in Zen Cart do this? It would be great if the search in Zen Cart could behave more like Google does. Because these days shop users use search a lot, and they expect Google type functionality because that's what they're most familiar with.

Why re invent the wheel? It isn't difficult to replace (or supplement) the ZenCart search tool with a Google search tool (specific to your site)

https://developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/overview?hl=en

Cheers
RodG

Thanks Rod, but I’m NOT keen on using Google Custom Search within Zen Cart. First, it’s a Google paid for product, which means the price is unlikely to be reasonable. I'd need a way to log searches for a while to know what it's likely to cost me.

Second, I’d need to see it working somewhere where it’s handled well within Zen Cart. Got any examples?

I’d prefer Zen Cart to be handling search just a bit better.

I would have thought it reasonably easy to improve the Zen Cart search to handle stuff with a hyphen. Search for a word with a hyphen in the keywords list, e.g. ‘air-spool’. Then add that term with the hyphen replaced by a space (e.g. ‘air spool’) and without the hyphen (e.g. ‘airspool’) to the keyword list. Then do the search.

Right now while writing product descriptions I have to be mindful to put all hyphen variants into the product descriptions, e.g. 'air-spool', 'air spool' and 'airspool', which typically makes them look a bit weird. It's not done for SEO (because the search engines handle it), but because of Zen Cart search limitations.

But I might be missing something.

Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.

lloyd_borrett:

I’d need to see it working somewhere where it’s handled well within Zen Cart. Got any examples?

Not at the moment (that I can think of).

lloyd_borrett:

I would have thought it reasonably easy to improve the Zen Cart search to handle stuff with a hyphen. Search for a word with a hyphen in the keywords list

I am, and forever will be puzzled over what a 'keyword' actually is.

lloyd_borrett:

e.g. ‘air-spool’. Then add that term with the hyphen replaced by a space (e.g. ‘air spool’) and without the hyphen (e.g. ‘airspool’) to the keyword list. Then do the search.

But then why stop at the hyphen? Shouldn't 'air_spool’ also have the conversion to ‘air spool’ ?
What if the search query is for ‘Airs pool’ - Does the searchee really want to see results for ‘air spool’ ?

lloyd_borrett:

Right now while writing product descriptions I have to be mindful to put all hyphen variants into the product descriptions, e.g. 'air-spool', 'air spool' and 'airspool', which typically makes them look a bit weird.

TBH, you don't have to be mindful, it is more that you choose to. Given the same situation my choice would be to pick one and be consistent about it.

lloyd_borrett:

It's not done for SEO (because the search engines handle it), but because of Zen Cart search limitations.

But I might be missing something.

Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.

What I think you are probably missing is that there is no consensus about how a SE should work, other than it is supposed to intuitively bring up the desired result for the searchee no matter how vague the search query. Google have put a lot of processing power into achieving this aim, which can't be replicated with a 'simple' search and finite amount of data.

It actually wouldn't be hard to implement your suggestion (replace hyphens/underscores with spaces then search for both 'air spool' and 'airspool', but it would also be more practical to replace these characters AND spaces with nulls, this will allow all variants be found with a single query. Downside is, unwanted results - If I search for 'air spool' I don't want 'airspool' being visible in the results.

Of course, it gets more complex than this if/when you take the AND/OR scenario into account. A person searching for 'air spool' could be looking for exactly that, or they may be searching for something that contains 'air' AND 'spool', or perhaps 'air' OR 'spool'.

The point I'm trying to make here is yes, it would be "reasonably easy to improve the Zen Cart search to handle stuff with a hyphen", but is this something that everyone wants? I doubt it. Is it easy to stop at just making this 'improvement', or is this just the thin end of a very big wedge that eventually evolved into Google?

Where does it stop?

Cheers
RodG

with regards to the original poster's problem, which seems real.

if seems that there are at least 3 phillip lim bags. if we pull the search out from the description we can see them here:

http://hgbagsonline.com/cart/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=0&keyword=pashli

however, if we search for phillip, only 1 of them shows up:

http://hgbagsonline.com/cart/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=0&keyword=phillip

which suggests to me that somehow something "might" be wrong in how the product name is stored in the DB; although i could be wrong.

i have rarely found these problems to be associated with the template....

if i wanted to find the root of the problem, i would look at the ../includes/modules/pages/advanced_search_result/header.php file. at the bottom of the file, these is a variable called $listing_sql. i would put a break there (on a test server) prior to the $zco_notifier statement, and find out what that variable contains ("die($listing_sql);" would work). i would then run that sql statement on your DB. from that statement, you can find why your searching might be going wrong.

hope that helps. good luck.

Hi...Thanks carlwhat - I'll look into that. Also want to acknowledge bdltoe - I'll look at your suggestion too (while not a solution would help find the source of the problem .. i.e. template).