How can the Weebly search engine be enhanced?

[pswilco]

[The title of this post has been edited by a moderator.]

The internal search engine that Weebly is using for square online sites is terrible and costing us business. If a user searched a specific item title that item many times won't even show up as top listing, even after changing how the results are displayed. We have over 1800 items and the website search engine is key to users finding the item they are looking for. The internal square item search works great but obviously, weebly has not upgraded their tech to match. Square online can never be a true eCommerce solution until this major weak point is fixed. very disappointed and this should be top priority for square and weebly. 

[nika]

Sorry for the search engine issues @pswilco. Can you share one of the links to one of those items that aren't showing up?

[pswilco]

Hi Nika

Thanks for replying.

The site is booksygalore.com. It's a bookstore lol

I can give you multiple examples but let's start with searching a title (this is not just applicable to this title but just an example)

User enters 'the stranger camus' into search

https://www.booksygalore.com/s/search?q=the%20stranger%20camus

As you see 400 results come up and no matter which selector I use (relevance etc) 

the actual book with this title and author, either does not come up or is buried pages deep, here is the actual item link

https://www.booksygalore.com/product/the-stranger-albert-camus-/1234?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=fa...

This is true for hundreds of books, I believe searching for a specific title, spelled correctly should produce that exact item at the top of results as it does in square database, is this an incorrect assumption?

You can try searching authors and. the same thing happens, sometimes not displaying all the books by that author or showing 20-30 titles mixed in. The issue is not hard to see when using the site.

Please help me as we have spent alot of time entering items in and I can't understand how such a basic feature as 'search an item name' does not produce a result with at least that specific item at the top?

Thanks for your help 

[nika]

Oh wow. I see what you mean @pswilco! The search function isn't helpful when it's not working, that's for sure. I put a bug in the ear of one of our eCom specialists. I'm waiting to hear back, so I'll let you know if there's any helpful info I can share!

[pswilco]

Great!

Would a re index of the site be a starting place. I think I noticed that items we added at the beginning of populating the site (months ago) seem to work properly.

How often are the items re indexed for search?

Thanks and much appreciated!

[nika]

@pswilco After further investigation, it appears that this may be a back end issue. 😔 I just filed a ticket with our engineering team about it so I'll get back to you as soon as I get an update. Thanks for your patience here!

[jilldifran]

I have discovered some items do not show up when using the search function on my site.  I can find the item another way, so it is there, but not when I use the search  function.  I have tried publishing the site again, but same problem exists. There is no way to know how many items are this way, making it appear to my customers that we do not have that item.

[nika]

Hi @jilldifran. I just merged your post to this thread. Seems related to the issue that pswilco is also experiencing. I have a ticket in with our team and I'm waiting to hear back from them. I'll share an update as soon as I have one. 

[pswilco]

Hi square online

It seems that you guys have fixed this issue with the search engine. It is working great and I just want to say thank you. Listening to your users and making a fix is what good customer service is. Very impressive!

pswilco