Search manager

This is for:

Merchandiser

The Coveo Merchandising Hub (CMH) Search manager is a tool designed to empower merchandisers to strategically influence and control products displayed in search results on a Coveo-powered commerce storefront.

With this tool, merchandisers can optimize the search experience by manipulating the results for specific search queries. It lets them create merchandising rules that directly affect product placement and prominence. This ensures that merchandisers can tailor the search results to meet specific business objectives and customer needs.

In addition, the Search manager offers performance metrics to enable continuous improvement and tailored strategies sought out by merchandisers, providing insights into user behavior and search performance.

Search manager main page

The Search manager main page provides merchandisers with an overview of all search queries associated with a specific storefront. It also provides merchandisers with access to merchandising rules and performance metrics for each search query.

Anatomy of the Search manager | Coveo

1

The Tracking ID and Locale selectors enable merchandisers to choose the tracking ID and locale combination to scope the search queries displayed in the Search manager.
See Tracking ID and locale selectors for more information about tracking IDs and locales.

2

The search bar allows merchandisers to search for specific queries or rules within the Search manager.

3

The navigation tabs allow merchandisers to switch between different sections of the Search manager.

4

The query filters enable merchandisers to show either All queries or Content gaps. When Content gaps is selected, the Search manager displays queries that returned no results. This feature helps merchandisers identify queries that have high search volume but no results, allowing them to create rules to improve the search experience.

5

By default, the Query row displays the search queries that are most frequently used by customers for the selected combination of tracking ID and locale. It’s also possible to sort the queries using the arrow icons next to each column header.

6

By clicking View for a given query, merchandisers can access the query details page, which provides detailed merchandising information, such as the rules applied, performance metrics, and ranking information for this specific search query.

7

For each query listed in the Search manager, key performance metrics are displayed to provide insights into the performance of the search query.

The navigation tabs enable merchandisers to switch between different sections of the Search manager. More specifically, the tabs provide access to the following sections:

  • Queries: Displays the most popular search queries for the selected combination of tracking ID and locale.

  • Filter rules: Displays the filter rules created for the selected combination of tracking ID and locale.

  • Ranking rules: Displays the ranking rules created for the selected combination of tracking ID and locale.

  • Synonym rules: Displays the synonym rules created for the selected combination of tracking ID and locale.

Search manager rules

Search manager rules allow merchandisers to fine-tune the search experience by setting specific guidelines that affect how products are queried and displayed. These merchandising rules are designed to optimize search relevancy and user experience, ensuring that each search query yields the most appropriate and strategically beneficial results.

These rules can be implemented globally across all search queries or applied to specific queries, providing flexibility and control over the search experience. Rules can also be scheduled to apply at specific times, allowing merchandisers to plan and execute strategies effectively.

Below are the types of rules that can be implemented:

  • Filter rules: Filter rules allow merchandisers to define conditions that filter products based on specific product attributes. More specifically, merchandisers can create include and exclude rules to control which products are displayed in search results.

    • Include rules: Force specific products to be returned.

    • Exclude rules: Prevent specific products from appearing. You can see Exclude rules as a blacklist of products that shouldn’t appear in search results.

  • Ranking rules: Ranking rules enable merchandisers to adjust the ranking of products in search results based on predefined criteria. More specifically, merchandisers can create boost, bury, and pin rules to promote and demote products in the search results.

    • Boost: Increase the ranking of specific products.

    • Bury: Decrease the ranking of specific products.

    • Pin: Force specific products to appear at predefined positions in the search results.

  • Synonym: Synonym rules allow merchandisers to define synonyms for search queries, ensuring that customers receive relevant results even when using different terms.

Priority of rule operations

When working with rules in the Search manager, it’s important to understand the priority of rule operations. Here is the order in which rules are applied:

  1. Pins: Pins have the highest priority and are applied first.

  2. Exclude: Exclusion rules are applied next, taking precedence over inclusion rules.

  3. Include: Inclusion rules are applied after the exclusion rules.

  4. Boost/Bury: Boost and bury rules are applied last, after the inclusion and exclusion rules.

When working with rules in the Search manager, it’s important to understand the priority of rule operations. Here is the order in which rules are applied:

  1. Pins: Pins have the highest priority and are applied first.

  2. Exclude: Exclusion rules are applied next, taking precedence over inclusion rules.

  3. Only show: Only show rules are applied after the exclusion rules.

  4. Boost/Bury: Boost and bury rules are applied last, after the inclusion and exclusion rules.

Key performance metrics

For each query listed in the Search manager, key performance metrics are displayed to provide quick insights into the performance of the search query:

Metric Definition

Views

The number of times the query was searched. Additional interactions like facets and page navigation will also increment this count.

Products

The number of products shown in the search results for the query.

Revenue

The revenue of products attributed to the query, including taxes, shipping costs, and discounts.

Conversion rate

The percentage of visits which converted for the query.

Clicking View at the end of the row allows merchandisers to access more metrics and detailed information about the query. See Performance metrics for more information.

Discrepancies between reports

Figures shown for metrics in Coveo Merchandising Hub (CMH) reports may differ from those for the same metrics in the Reports (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page of the Coveo Administration Console and the Commerce Advanced Reports.

These discrepancies typically occur because different reports use distinct filters and processing rules when calculating figures for the same metric.

Here are the most common reasons for differences between reports:

  • Inclusion of searchBoxAsYouType events:

    By default, reports from the Reports (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page include search events where the event cause is searchBoxAsYouType. This can result in higher query figures compared to the Commerce Advanced Reports or CMH reports, which exclude these events by default.

  • Time zone differences:

    CMH reports use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), while the reports of the Reports page and Commerce Advanced Reports use the user’s browser time zone. This difference can lead to a few hours of offset in event timestamps, which may affect metric calculations.

  • Case sensitivity in query metrics:

    For query-related metrics, CMH reports are case-sensitive, while the reports of the Reports page and Commerce Advanced Reports are case-insensitive. This means that identical queries with different casing are treated as separate queries in CMH reports but are counted as the same query in the other reports. For example, the queries coveo and Coveo are counted as separate queries in CMH reports but as the same query in the other reports.