Searching websites can be tough, and the reason is because we usually provide too much information. When searching for products, websites typically try to match our searches with the product name, or maybe in addition brand and manufacturer. However, this doesn’t stop us users providing more and more information in our quick search, so much so that the website can’t find any matches and returns zero results....
So what is the solution?
workFile Multi-Column fuzzy searching
The workFile eCommerce module now provides an option to include multiple field fuzzy searching. What does that mean you may be thinking. Well, if you provide too much information, the workFile eCommerce module website removes any “noise” and then splits your search up into key words and finds any items that match any of these key words.
First off, “noise” is words that really aren’t key, so for example words such as “the”, “and”, “of”, “it” etc. Once removed the keywords are identified and then matched to products on your website. A great example of this is seen at www.JuneEmerson.co.uk
Many users search for music pieces by the composer, part of the title of the piece and perhaps the arranger (many go further and include the editor, publisher and much more). You can see that searching like this may seem the sensible thing to do, but it was often bring back zero results. With the new searching capabilities of the eCommerce module, the website splits the search string down into key words and carries out its search. So for example, “Mozart Adagio” will find all pieces of type Adagio, as well as pieces composed, edited or arranged by Mozart. All in all this allows the website to bring back a vast array of products that the user may be looking for...
Narrowing
Once your results are back, you can narrow based on the different types of key fields, so in the case of www.JuneEmerson.co.uk you can narrow your search further by only showing titles that match your search phrase, composers, editors or arrangers...This allows the user to quickly shift through the vast amounts of stock available on the website...
You want to narrow further?
The new searching also allows yet further narrowing. Sticking with our example of www.juneemerson.co.uk a user can then further narrow their search by products that are found within a particular type of instrument (instruments match up to the browse menu of the website). This narrowing further, allows the user to have started with a large result set based on their search, and to narrow it down and narrow it down further until there is only a handful of results, making it far easier to find the product they were looking for...
For more information on the eCommerce modules fuzzy and multi-column searching facility, narrowing facilities and narrow further facilities please get in touch with a member of staff...
The advanced search
Sometimes though, this form of searching can still bring back to many results, there simply is too many “noise” results to shift through. Because of this, advanced searching features are available, allowing visitors to break their search down into smaller chunks, which in turn, bring back a smaller and more accurate result set to start with. This type of searching is very powerful and accurate; however it does require more time and effort on the visitor’s behalf...