Get started with search indexing

Optimizely Configured Commerce provides several ways to reindex your search engine as you make changes to your settings.

Types of search indexes

There are several types of search indexing within Configured Commerce:

• Product – Quick Rebuild (Partial) or Full Rebuild, which includes a cache refresh of the category menu, memory, catalog, and content.
  • Rebuild Dynamic Categories – Includes rebuilding dynamic categories with the full product rebuild.
  • Rebuild Restriction Groups – Includes rebuilding restriction groups with the full product rebuild.
  • Rebuild Product Badges – Includes rebuilding product badges with the full product rebuild.
• Content – Full Rebuild, which includes a cache refresh of the category menu, memory, catalog, and content.
• Category – Full Rebuild, which includes a cache refresh of the category menu, memory, catalog, and content.

Go to Marketing > Indexing to access the search indexes, their status, and the option to perform a Quick (Partial) Rebuild (product only) or Full Rebuild. A Quick Rebuild only updates product records that have changed at the base level, which does not include changes to the product's child items, such as category or attribute assignments; a Full Rebuild re-indexes all products, including their child items.

When to rebuild

Rebuilding an index is necessary whenever you make changes to a content area. In most circumstances, modifying product records requires the Product Search Index to be rebuilt. Changes to products or child objects (categories, attributes, and so on) display on the website correctly without a re-index because they are loaded even after a search. However, new changes are not searchable until indexed. When adding or removing a product from a category, or adding or removing an attribute, these relational changes do not display until after you reindex. It depends on whether you made changes to searchable content and if it is important for the new search terms to work immediately.

You should also consider the amount of time it takes to complete a rebuild. Depending on the number of products, running a Full Rebuild can take some time. Running a Quick Rebuild takes less time to complete. You should be strategic in flagging products whose child objects are modified frequently with the Schedule for Quick Indexing option. These products are then always included in the Quick Rebuild, even if the base product is not updated.

Add a product to the quick rebuild

To flag a product manually, go to the product and select More (...) > Schedule for Quick Indexing.

Rebuild status notifications

The Admin Console provides rebuild status notifications. These notifications happen on the Indexing page and below the Breadcrumb visible on the Admin Console. These notifications let users continue working without remaining on the Indexing page. The Indexing page notifications provide the indexing status and a link to the Index Job. The date line of the notification serves as the link to the related job history. The Job page provides important information about the job, which can be helpful for troubleshooting.

Turn off the Enable Force Merge setting (Elasticsearch)

This setting improves the search results returned when customers re-run the same query multiple times or page through search results, preventing different results from displaying each time you run the same search. This setting adds a Flush and Force Merge function at the end of both the full and partial index rebuild to bring together the results. By default, this setting is on, but if necessary, you can disable it using the following process.

This setting is only for Commerce Search v1 and Commerce Search v2.

1. Go to Administration > Settings in the Admin Console.
2. Search for Enable Force Merge.
3. Set the toggle to No. 
4. Click Save.

Enable product number tiebreaker

In rare cases where two or more products in a search have the same score or short description, resulting in a tie in sorting priorities, enable this setting to use the product number as a tiebreaker.

1. Go to Administration > Settings in the Admin Console.
2. Search for Enable Product Number Tiebreaker.
3. Set the toggle to Yes. If yes, search results are sorted by product number to handle ties in the search term results when the relevance score is identical.
4. Click Save.