Hiding results with rules
On this page
Sometimes, you may want to use a rule to hide records based on what users are searching for. For example, consider a user searching for “cheap laptops” on an ecommerce site. Without a rule, cheap and premium laptops will appear in the search results. By applying a rule where:
- Condition: query contains “cheap”
- Consequence: hide items where the
product_range
attribute ispremium
Users searching for cheap laptops will only see the more affordable options in the search results.
To hide one or more items, use an Algolia API client or the Algolia dashboard’s Visual Editor. You can also hide individual items with the Algolia dashboard’s Manual Editor.
You can hide up to 50 items per rule.
Using an API client
This example uses the saveRule
method to hide a record if the query contains the word “cheap”.
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$rule = [
'objectID' => 'hide-12345',
'conditions' => array(array(
'pattern' => 'cheap',
'anchoring' => 'contains'
)),
'consequence' => [
'hide' => [
'objectID' => 'to-hide-12345'
]
]
];
$index->saveRule($rule);
Using the Visual Editor
- Go to the Algolia dashboard and select your Algolia application.
- On the left sidebar, select Search.
-
Select your Algolia index:
- Select the Rules section from the left sidebar menu in the Algolia dashboard.
- Under the heading Rules, specify the index where you want to add the rule.
- Select Create your first rule or New rule. In the drop-down menu, click the Visual Editor option.
- In the It all starts here section:
- Click Set query condition(s).
- In the side panel, type your query in the input field, for example,
cheap
, and click Apply.
- In the What do you want to do? section:
- Click Hide items.
- Click Hide by attribute
- In the first box, enter the name of an attribute, such as
product_range
- In the second box, enter a value you want to hide, such as
premium
- Click Apply.
- Click Review and Publish.
Using the Manual Editor
- Go to the Algolia dashboard and select your Algolia application.
- On the left sidebar, select Search.
-
Select your Algolia index:
- Select the Rules section from the left sidebar menu in the Algolia dashboard.
- Under the heading Rules, specify the index where you want to add the rule.
- Select Create your first rule or New rule. In the drop-down menu, click the Manual Editor option.
- In the Condition(s) section, keep Query toggled on, select Contains in the drop-down menu, and type your query in the input field (for example,
cheap
). - In the Consequence(s) section:
- Click Add consequence and select Hide an item.
- Click the item you want to hide.
- Click Save.