Search Problem

[stualk]

I've got a problem with the search facility on my website in that it doesn't seem to be finding everything when you do a search. For example, it will find about 70% of the products by typing in the product reference but the with the remainder it just says "No matching products were found" These products are definitely in the database and we have searched for them successfully before.

I've done a site refresh but this hasn't solved the problem. Anyone come across this before?

[jont]

Under the search settings ensure you have all characters allowed for searching that are in the product references eg if you have a "-" in the product code this may have set to exclude. Test to see which products are not being found and see if any special characters are being used.

Some characters are best avoided all together as they can kill the script... "&" for example may cause problems

[stualk]

Hi,

Yes I've checked that but all the characters I need are there.

The problem is strange. It appears to be a problem with using only numbers most of the time, although when testing some products that have only numbers in the reference some of them do appear, some don't!

An example, the product BK136 is in the database. If I search for either "BK136" or just "BK" the product is found by the search. If I just type "136" it won't find the product.

Very strange but I have got both letters and numbers in the allowed list of characters.

[stualk]

I also need to know how to add the product reference to the search results page. At the moment it's showing everything but that and the search settings option doesn't give the option to show the reference in the search results.

[wjcampbe]

I believe it has been stated by Actinic that the product reference has to be considered a "starts with" search rather than a "contains" search. What you could do is repeat the reference within the body of the description, and see if that gets picked up.

Chech the results.html template. If the NQV for PRODUCTREF is already there and commented out, remove the comment markers. If it's not, add it.

[stualk]

Thanks Bill.

I understand the thoery behind what you're saying but I can't seem to find the correct template to update. When I go into Template Manager and the Searching tab I have looked at the templates for 'Search', 'Search Props.' and 'Results' but I can't find any references to the product reference and nothing appears to be commented out. Can you advise?

[Nadeem]

Hi Stuart

Please check in "View | Business Settings | Options", that there is no tick in "Hide Product Reference in Online Catalog". If this is ticked, then that would be the reason it not appearing in search. Please could you check this. Also what Bill said prior was right, Actinic searches from the beginning, not from the middle, I'm afraid.

Kind Regards

[stualk]

I spoke with Keyvan (I think) at Actinic support over the phone before Christmas. He told me there was a way to make the search facility search from anywhere in the product reference. I agree because if you search for something in the product description it will find something even if it appears in the middle of the description.

Keyvan still hasn't got back to me (he said he would post about how to do it on here). Does anyone know how to make the search facility search 'anywhere' within the product reference?

Please help!

[NormanRouxel]

if you search for something in the product description it will find something even if it appears in the middle of the description

This is only true for separate words in the description. It still won't match the inside of a word. Each word must match from the start.

[stualk]

But surely that's also possible using the product reference?

For example, searching for '1234' should bring up a product who's reference is 'abc 1234' because the reference contains the numbers 1234, as used in the search. That's exactly how the product description search works.