Action: Add or Replace Search Criteria

Use this action in a search rule to add or replace search criteria when customers submit searches in the store. Adding search criteria limits the scope of search results in the store by adding additional search criteria, while replacing search criteria modifies the search results.

Adding search criteria

We can add search criteria for the following search filters:

Property

The property to assign ranking factors.

The following properties are available by default:

• Code

• Inventory

• Manufacturer Name

• Manufacturer Part Number

• Name

• Short Description

Note: Search rule actions and targets in the Management Center dynamically populate a list of catalog entry indexed properties. Your IT administrator must customize WebSphere Commerce search when new indexed catalog entry properties are added to search rule actions or targets.

Catalog entry type

The catalog entry type to assign ranking factors.

The following catalog entry types are available by default:

• Product

• SKU

• Bundle

• Kit

• Dynamic Kit

Attribute Dictionary Attributes

Attribute Dictionary Attributes with predefined values and marked as Use in merchandising to assign ranking factors.

Category

The category to assign ranking factors, for example, Apparel.

Sales Category

The sales category to assign ranking factors, for example, Holiday.

Rule-Based Sales Category

The rule-based sales category to assign ranking factors, for example, Clearance.

For example, if a shopper is searching for table, we can restrict the search results to the Furniture category and filter out products from other categories such as table glasses.

Replacing search criteria

We can specify search terms to replace the shopper's submitted search terms in the store. In doing so, we can promote catalog entries that you know appear in search results for specific search terms.

For example, if a shopper enters a general search term that likely results in many search results, such as computer, the action can replace it with a more specific search term, such as laptop.

Guidelines for using this action

When setting up this action, we must:

• Use this action to narrow down the search result.

  If we are using using this action to replace search terms and our search rule does not have any targets, we might consider creating search term associations instead.

Related concepts
Action: Add To or Remove From Customer Segment
Action: Change Search Result Order
Action: Specify Top Search Result