Relevance overview
Relevance is finding results that match a query and ranking them so the best-matched results appear at the top of the list.
- To find results, Algolia uses text-based comparisons like typos and stop words, and non-textual factors such as filters and geolocation.
- Ranking, which determines the order of results, relies on a tie-breaking algorithm to present the most relevant items first.
Good relevance is vital because it directly affects the quality of user’s search results. In an ecommerce environment, poorly ranked results decrease user satisfaction and conversion.
Some common indications that you need to improve relevance are:
- Too many irrelevant results. Relevance suffers when searching large text attributes. Consider searching smaller, targeted attributes instead.
- Important content is buried. You haven’t implemented custom ranking or failed to set some key attributes as searchable.
How to improve relevance
If you don’t configure anything else, these are the two settings you should change:
- Choose a good set of searchable attributes.
- Apply custom ranking to adapt Algolia to your needs.
Further relevance optimizations
Algolia has some key features to let you further enhance relevance:
- Use rules to override relevance in some situations. For example, for seasonal product promotions.
- Use synonyms if your records contain terms that users may be unfamiliar with.
- Offer facets so users can fine-tune the relevance of their results.
- Change natural language settings to help anticipate user errors (such as misspellings) and to optimize for a multi-lingual audience.
- Use Personalization (classic or advanced) to show returning users results that align with their established preferences, like works by a specific author or clothing from a particular brand.
With any change, use search analytics for insights into what your users search for, and which results they select. Consider A/B testing to create two alternative search experiences, put them both live and see which performs best.
Enhance the user experience
Algolia also offers features that enhance the user experience:
