Improved Search

About the Extension

Improved Search replaces the Shopware search suggestions with a live search overlay. From two characters on (by default), customers see matching products with image, product number and price while they type, together with search suggestions and categories. The plugin logs searches and clicks, learns from them and shows you in the Administration what your customers search for.

Live search while customers type

• Product rows with image, name, product number and price, including strikethrough and "From" prices
• Search terms highlighted in the results (default)
• Search suggestions and category suggestions together with the products
• "View all results" leads to the search results page
• Own search results page instead of Shopware's listing, 24 hits at a time with "Load more"
• Keyboard navigation with arrow keys, Enter and Escape

Add to cart straight from the search

By default, the search overlay and the search results page show an "Add to cart" button for products without variants that can be bought directly. The button adds the minimum purchase quantity. In the overlay it appears as a compact cart icon by default, on the results page always as a text button. Products with variants keep linking to the product page. Optionally, the button also appears for products with graduated prices.

Four layouts and four styles for the search

Choose how the search opens: Dropdown below the search field, Fullscreen with search terms and categories beside the product tiles, Sidebar sliding in from the right or Spotlight as a centred window over a blurred background. On screens narrower than 768 px, Dropdown switches to Fullscreen, which then shows the products only.

• Search styles Default, Bordered, Minimal and Glass
• Loading animations Spinner, Bouncing dots or Progress bar
• Theme colours by default, or custom colours for accent, prices, background, highlights and button
• Product images fit into or fill the square image box (Fullscreen layout and results page)
• Your theme's own search field connected via a CSS selector

Popular searches for an empty search field

When customers click into the empty search field, the search shows popular searches, popular products and categories by default. Popular searches are the product and category names customers clicked most in the search over the last 30 days, popular products are the most clicked products; without click data, your best-selling products appear.

• Recent searches of each customer, saved in their browser when they submit the search with Enter or the search button (Dropdown layout)
• "Did you mean:" suggests the similar-sounding name of a product customers clicked in the search during the last 90 days, when the search overlay finds no products (default)
• No results: popular products instead of an empty search overlay

A search that learns from clicks

The search logs searches and clicks per sales channel and language. For a search term, the products customers clicked most in the last 30 days move to the front of the loaded results, and the search suggestions show what customers clicked after the same search.

Tolerant product search

Without Elasticsearch, the search finds products whose name or product number contains every word of the query (words of two characters or more). The diacritic-tolerant search (default) also matches spelling variants, so "mueller" finds "Müller" and "skalskor" finds "Skælskør". By default, the search lists only main products instead of every single variant.

• Optional: search product descriptions, with a catalog limit for large shops (20,000 active products by default)
• In the search overlay, description hits follow in a second step after the first results
• With Elasticsearch active, the search uses Elasticsearch; synonyms and spelling variants apply only to the database search

Synonyms, boosted products and redirects for the search

Under Catalogues > Improved Search, you fine-tune the search per sales channel and language:

• Search synonyms: searching one term of a group such as "notebook, laptop, macbook" also finds the others
• Boosted products: chosen products are added at the top of the results for a search term, sorted by position (products clicked for the term can still move ahead), with an optional prefix match that applies while customers type
• Search redirects: an exact search term leads straight to a page of your shop, e.g. /sale/

Search statistics in the Administration

The "Search Statistics" page shows how well your search performs, per sales channel, language and period (the last 7, 30 or 90 days or a custom range):

• Total searches, total clicks, zero-result searches, click-through rate and conversion rate
• Change against the previous period for searches, clicks and click-through rate
• Searches over time and a click breakdown for products, categories and terms
• "Top search terms", "Terms with no results" and "Click-through rate by term", with click details per term
• Most clicked products by search term, with their conversion rate

A conversion counts when a customer orders a product within 60 minutes after clicking it in the search. Export CSV downloads the figures for up to 500 search terms.

Search data under control

By default, a weekly task deletes search logs older than 90 days (retention 7 to 365 days). Delete data removes the logs of the selected sales channel and language at any time. With Shopware's cookie consent, the search stores recent searches only after customers allow "Recent searches" under "Comfort features". Clicks are recorded with signed tokens, and rate limits protect the search routes.