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Search Redirects
The B2C Commerce guided search redirect feature enables you to direct a customer to a particular page, URL, or pipeline when they enter a search term. When the customer searches on a term, for example, the redirect returns a specific page, instead of returning product search results for the entered search keyword. With search redirects, you have more control over what customers see, enhancing their buying experience, and directing them to content or products that increase the likelihood of a purchase.
Managing Search Redirects
The following table shows some examples of possible search redirects.
| The customer searches on... | The redirect that appears is a... |
|---|---|
| career | Specific landing page. This gives the customer exactly the information they’re looking for, instead of performing an irrelevant product search. |
| featured product | A microsite that has a different look and feel, content, or buyer's guide information. For example, you want to create a microsite around a group of movie-related products. |
| a specific term | Category page with a wide variety of equivalent products. |
Search Redirect Options
Search redirect syntax options give you fine-grained control over how B2C Commerce triggers search redirects.
When the Search Redirect setting is Disabled, B2C Commerce processes keywords using the Exact match type. When the setting is Enabled, B2C Commerce processes keywords using any or all of the following match types: Exact, Phrase, Broad, and Negative.
Each search redirect can be triggered by multiple, comma-separated keywords.
Exact Match
When the keyword phrase is enclosed in brackets, as in [mens shoes],
the redirect rule triggers when the customer searches for the specific phrase mens
shoes, in that order, with no other words in the search term, and with no
variations in the keywords (that is, [mens shoe] singular doesn’t
trigger the rule).
This table shows an example:
| Keywords | Search redirect trigger for... | Search redirect not triggered for... |
|---|---|---|
[mens shoes]
|
mens shoes | red mens shoes men's shoes |
[sandal]
|
sandal | red sandal mens sandal sandals |
Phrase Match
When the keyword phrase is enclosed in quotation marks, as in "mens shoes", the redirect rule triggers when the customer searches on the phrase mens shoes, with the words in that order. It can also appear for searches that contain other terms as long as it includes the exact phrase specified.
This table shows an example:
| Keywords | Search redirect trigger for... | Search redirect not triggered for... |
|---|---|---|
| "mens shoes" | mens shoes red mens shoes mens shoes large |
shoes men men shoes men's shoes |
| "sandals" | sandals red sandals mens sandals |
sandal sandale |
Broad Match
When the keyword phrase contains mens shoes, with no quotation marks, the rule triggers when the customer's search term contains both mens and shoes in any order. The rule also triggers for singular or plural forms based on stemming for the specific language. Synonyms or other variations aren’t considered.
This table shows an example:
| Keywords | Search redirect trigger for... | Search redirect not triggered for... |
|---|---|---|
| mens shoes | mens shoes cheap shoes for men buy mens shoes |
mens shoes cheap shoes |
| sandal | sandals red sandals sandales |
red mens |
Negative Match
When the keyword phrase is prefixed with a hyphen, the rule will not trigger for any searches containing those terms. Negative keywords can only be used with at least one positive keyword. A search redirect containing only negative keywords won’t be triggered for any keyword. For example, the keywords mens shoes, -used triggers search redirects for mens shoes and cheap shoes for men, but not used shoes.
This table shows an example:
| Keywords | Search redirect trigger for... | Search redirect not triggered for... |
|---|---|---|
| mens shoes, -used, -"running shoes" -basketball shoes, | mens shoes cheap shoes for men buy mens shoes shoes running |
mens basketball shoes running shoes men used shoes |
| -shoes | none |
any |
How Search Redirects Work
B2C Commerce uses the SearchRedirectURL pipelet to integrate redirect evaluation into your storefront search flow. The SearchRedirectURL pipelet must be placed before the Search pipelet to ensure that the standard search is bypassed in case the user searches for a redirect keyword.
If the term matches a search redirect, the SearchRedirectURL pipelet calculates the fully qualified target URL based on the configured redirect action. The calculated URL can then be used in an ISML template to issue the actual HTTP redirect to the client browser. For an example, see the Search-Show subpipeline in SiteGenesis.
Localization
For each search redirect, a list of keywords can be specified per locale. If there are no keywords defined for a specific locale for a search redirect, the standard locale fallback mechanism applies, as shown in the following example.
In this example, some locales have defined keywords and some don’t. The locales that don't have defined keywords use the keywords provided via the fallback mechanism.
| Locale | Keywords |
|---|---|
| en_US | |
| en | |
| de_DE | |
| de_AT | |
| de | Männerschuhe, Damenschuhe, -gebraucht |
| es_ES | "Zapatos de los hombres", "Zapatos de mujer", -utilizado |
| es | |
| default | mens shoes, womens shoes, -used |
Keywords for the default locale are used when a customer browses using the en_US locale. This is because en_US defaults to en, which defaults to default. Both locales, en_US and en, use the default keywords: mens shoes, womens shoes, -used
The <de> locale is used when a customer browses using the de_DE or de_AT locale because both locales, containing no keywords, default to the de locale. A search by a customer in the es_ES locale uses the es_ES keywords and no fallback.
