Make your mobile-user experience seamless
By providing excellent search and discovery
Create modern, intelligent Search and Discovery
for mobile websites and apps
Create AI-driven mobile-native experiences with Algolia APIs
Mobile & App Search, Discovery and Recommendations
that are fast to build and scale
More than 90% of people use a mobile device such as an iPhone, iPad, or Android, so optimizing your mobile search and discovery experiences is imperative. With Algolia, create personalized experiences that improve your customer journey. Increase your conversion rates, shopper and user engagement, and elevate your brand.
Maximize small-screen real estate
By focusing functionality on what people want when they’re on their smartphones
Reduce friction
And improve engagement by correcting users’ text-entry typos and spelling mistakes
Help searchers find what they need fast
With out-of-the-box search-as-you-type autocomplete with real-time results
Easily integrate Search, Browse, Recommendations and more
into your mobile applications
Integrate in your iOS & Android mobile apps
Developers can quickly build excellent mobile search and discovery experiences with our front-end components for iOS, Android, and mobile web. Our components and UI libraries reflect the concepts, coding patterns, and UX/UI best practices for each framework.
Add voice search capabilities
Web browsing is the primary action people do on their mobile devices, but voice searching is in second place. Let users easily voice search with native browser speech-to-text support. And you can add voice search to your mobile apps with voice overlay for Android and iOS developers.
Be location focused
People using mobile devices are more likely to be searching for information related to their physical location, such as a restaurant or retail store. If you want more engagement or conversions, it’s smart to serve relevant local search content and results. Whether someone is surfing the web at home, or walking around a foreign city, they’ll get relevant local mobile search results.
Read your mobile searchers’ minds with analytics
Our analytics features reveal what your mobile users are trying to locate, which search results they’re selecting, and how they proceed based on what they discover while searching. You can use this insight to do things like fine-tune search relevance, improve your app’s user interface, and decide which content or products to promote for your smartphone users.
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Mobile & App Search FAQs
Mobile search is search conducted using a mobile device, for instance, an Apple iPhone or iPad, or an Android phone.
An estimated 48% of U.S. web traffic is generated by people using mobile devices (e.g., an Apple iPhone or an Android phone), according to Statista (2021). Globally the percentage is higher—more than 50%.
More than when they're using a desktop computer or laptop, mobile users often do local searches: those related to their geographical area (for example, "near me" searches). In addition, someone entering a search query using a mobile device is likely to want relatively simple information (as opposed to needing to conduct an online search for data on an information-intensive web page), such as the distance to a nearby pizza restaurant or which neighborhood retailers carry a product they've decided to buy using Google search or Amazon.
There are various types of mobile apps. Some mobile search engines provide answers to questions (e.g., when someone asks for the local weather forecast). Some make personalized product recommendations based on entered search terms and collected shopper preferences. Some give directions, hail rides, or let people search for news articles. Some include the option of voice search, allowing users to speak their search queries.
Mobile search presents unique challenges to mobile-app designers, product marketers, and others because mobile device screens are obviously much smaller than those on desktop and laptop PCs.
The mobile search experience can be optimized to overlook typos caused while trying to tap keys on a tiny screen, as well as to offer mobile users shortcuts by suggesting queries based on the text they seem to be entering.
Mobile search is a dynamic field that is continually changing as new technology, such as the ability to make AI-related recommendations and personalize the shopping experience in an ecommerce app, become available. Voice search on a mobile device is another new option that's popular with people who get impatient with trying to tap letters on a tiny screen.
Many companies and organizations have yet to optimize their apps for mobile search, but as more do, and their mobile users are delighted, the practice of using mobile devices to search is sure to become an even more ingrained part of everyday American life.
According to Statista (2021) about 48% of U.S. web traffic is generated by people using mobile devices (e.g., an Apple iPhone or an Android phone). For the world as a whole, the percentage is higher—more than 50%.
An older report (2016), "Mobile Search: Topics and Themes" (Hitwise), concluded that almost 60% of all searches are done on mobile devices. This study also found that the most popular sector for a mobile search was the food and beverage category. This makes sense given that people often use their mobile phones while out in a town or a particular geographical area to do a local search for a restaurant near them.
According to Statista (2021), about 50% of the world's web traffic is generated by people using mobile devices, such as an Apple iPhone or an Android phone. This percentage has been consistent since early 2017.
Watching movies and videos (via mobile apps Netflix, Tencent, or Amazon Prime from the Apple app store), surfing social media sites, and emailing were found to be the most popular things for mobile users to do on their devices.
In a book called Mobile Design Pattern Gallery (2014), author Theresa Neil focuses on the value of autocompletion in enhancing basic searching on a mobile phone. Autocomplete functionality suggests search queries as a user enters search terms on their mobile device; when the search they want appears, they can simply tap it. The final touch in terms of usefulness: providing a mobile search engine progress indicator, such as a ticking clock or the word "Searching...".
Another popular mobile app pattern for maximizing small-screen real estate during a mobile search is faceted search, which lets the searcher narrow their results by applying filters, typically by selecting options provided in a "tray"-style overlay. Faceted search is often utilized by retailers in ecommerce (and the mobile equivalent, m-commerce) and by travel service providers, as well as in online search tools on media websites.
One relatively new application for searching on mobile devices is voice search. According to eMarketer, in 2019, 40% of all U.S. Internet users were using voice search, which has grown more popular, albeit slowly.
If you're creating an outstanding user experience for people needing to do online searches on a mobile phone or other mobile device, there are lots of best practices. Here are some things user experience (UX) experts recommend:
Excellent usability. An intuitive, easy-to-use app design and layout. It's obvious what buttons do and how to access a second page of search results. Intuitive search-narrowing methods (e.g., a toggle, slider, or check boxes) are used.
An appropriately prominent search bar. Some mobile apps work best when people use a search bar, while in others, the open-ended nature of the content, such as on a news website, makes browsing the best way of finding content. The search bar placement, size, and amount of contrast can help establish how strongly searching is "recommended," according to Baymard Institute. If search is more of an optional pursuit, a company might substitute a search icon that can be clicked to open the search bar.
Autocompletion. Autocomplete functionality suggests search queries as a user enters text on their mobile device; when the search they want appears, they can simply tap it. It's ideal for autocomplete suggestions to visually differentiate the mobile search engine's suggestions, for example, by bolding available search terms the user could add to the end of a query they've started entering.
Consistency. The search bar should be located in the same spot on every page in the app, for instance.
Easy refinement. The user should be able to fine-tune their search results if needed. Many websites facilitate this by including the search bar with the person's query entered above the search results in case the user needs to start over.
Easy-to-select filters. The user's filtering options should be clearly displayed or include a clickable filtering icon for drilling down to find the right information.
No errors. People get impatient when they can't get an app to work correctly, so it's critical for the designer to review every aspect of the search experience before release.
The latest technology. Voice search on mobile devices has taken off among some mobile users, so it makes sense to include spoken searching as an option.
The fewest possible steps. Users should be able to quickly search for, find, and if applicable, buy, a desired item on a small mobile-device screen.
A personalized experience. Companies can use AI tools that gather information from users to create a search experience tailored to their needs. For instance, based on what they've already searched for, you can offer shoppers recommendations for similar or complementary items, or refer them to local retailers' brick-and-mortar stores where they could immediately pick up the item.
By creating a rewarding search experience for people using a mobile device, companies and organizations can improve conversion and reduce their bounce rate. The happier that mobile users are with an app or site, the more likely they'll be to come back for more.