Search comes with several settings that allow you to adjust its behavior.
When you change a setting, it triggers an analysis of your data that must complete before changes take effect.
This process can take up to 15 minutes but may be faster depending on the size of your catalogue. You can monitor the status in System Status > Data sync.
The settings require Search 3.0 to be enabled. Afterwards, you can access them in Settings > Search Configuration.
Filterable attributes #
Attributes added here are available for selection when configuring your Search Content or API Calls.
Set them up here first, then add them to the list of attributes you want to filter by, either in the Content settings or through API calls.
Certain attributes are essential for Clerk’s AI to function correctly and cannot be removed:
- age
- id
- price
- categories
Non-searchable attributes #
This section lets you exclude attributes from the search index, meaning their text will not be searchable. For instance, you might send a margin percentage or an internal ID to Clerk without making it available for customer searches.
By default, the price and stock attributes are in the list to prevent searches containing numbers from being skewed by these attributes. You can customize this list as needed.
Ranking Groups #
The Searchable attributes grouped by ranking order setting allows you to create groups of attributes with different levels of importance for search results. Attributes in higher-ranking groups have greater influence on the results displayed.
E.g. if group 1 contains "brand" and _category_name, while group 2 contains name and color, a search for “blue Nike boots” will prioritize products with the brand “Nike” in the “Boots” category over items with those words in their name attribute.
This prioritization helps emphasize significant data such as genres, specifications, or other key attributes.
For example, in bookstores, it is often more relevant to prioritize the author of a book. A search for “Stephen” should prioritize books by Stephen King over books that include “Stephen” in their titles.
Notice: Be cautious when modifying these groups. Adding too many attributes may cause Clerk to deprioritize product popularity, focusing only on text-relevance.
Custom dictionary #
The custom dictionary allows you to define search terms that would typically be treated as separate words instead of a single concept.
For example, if your catalog includes products from the sneaker brand D.A.T.E., you might want to add “D.A.T.E.” and “D. A. T. E.” to the custom dictionary.
Unique identifiers #
By default, Clerk returns all relevant results for searches on your site. However, in specific cases — like searching for an SKU or EAN number — you may expect only a single match.
By including attributes in this list, you configure Clerk to return a single result when the query matches a value in those attributes. This also disables auto-correction to ensure only the exact match is displayed.
The most common ones are sku and ean, but any synced attributes can be used.
Criteria #
Clerk detects a query as a unique identifier when:
- It’s alphanumeric and includes at least one of the following characters: “-+/&_.0123456789”.
- It has at least 5 characters.
- It does not contain spaces or quotes.
If Clerk finds a single exact match in any of the unique identifier attributes, that product is returned immediately, overriding any customized search or merchandising rules. Otherwise, the query is treated as a regular search.