Set Up Search in Your Store

1. The quick search in the header

Once you enter three or more characters, a preview appears below the search field: relevant items with images and prices, along with categories, brands, content pages (under the “Content” heading), news, and FAQ entries. One click takes you directly to the result.

2. The search results page

Pressing Enter or clicking the magnifying glass opens the full list of results. It displays all matching items page by page and, if desired, categories, manufacturers, news, FAQ entries, and pages above or below the product list.

3. Filters and Sorting

The results page features the same product filters as in your categories, such as price, manufacturer, stock status, and features. Your customers can change the order using the sort menu (set to “Standard Sort” by default).

4. Analysis

The store counts each search term along with the number of results. Terms with no results show what your customers are looking for but cannot find on your site.

Show or hide search

By default, the header displays the search. When disabled, it disappears from the header.

Settings → General → Search → Quick Search in Header On/Off

Permanent Input Field on Desktop

By default, a magnifying glass opens the search field on the desktop. A permanently visible input field appears when the header navigation is positioned below the header area: Set “Header Navigation: Position” to “below” and “Header Navigation: Search Function Expanded Yes/No” to “Yes.” If the navigation iscentered, the magnifying glass remains.

Settings → Design → Header →Header Navigation: Position
Settings → General → Search → Header Navigation: Search Function Expanded Yes/No

On a smartphone

In the “Modern” style (default), the mobile header has two rows, with the search bar always visible in the second row. In the “Classic” style, a search icon opens a full-screen search.

Settings → Design → Header → Mobile Header Style

How many suggestions?

For each type, you can specify how many results the preview and the search results page should display. Setting a value to 0 disables that type; it won’t be searched for at all. For products, a minimum of 1 is required in the preview.

Settings → General → Search → Search: Number ofresults per type from 4.9.87

With or without images?

Images in the preview help with quick recognition, especially for fashion, home decor, and replacement parts. This setting applies to product images and category images. For highly technical product lines, a text-only list may be clearer.

Settings → General → Search → Images in Quick Search

How wide can it be?

container (default) limits the preview to the content width of your store, up to a maximum of 1320 pixels. fullwidth uses the full window width and allows for more columns.

Settings → General → Search → Quick Search Result Width

Show Product Number

The preview displays the item number below the name. This helps with items that have nearly identical names. The number appears only if “Show Item Number” is also enabled under Settings → Design → Product Listing.

Settings → General → Search → Quick Search: Show Item Number from 4.9.86

More Than Just Products

In addition to products, the preview displays categories and brands as clickable chips, with an image if one is available. Below these are related content pages (under “Content”), news, and FAQ entries. This allows users to jump to the entire category with a single click instead of just a single product.

Settings → General → Search → Search: Number of results per type from 4.9.87

Order of Sections

The default is: Articles first, followed by categories, brands, and the remaining content. If desired, the preview can follow the order you’ve specified for the search results page. If the “Rich” style is selected for categories there, categories with images appear as cards, just like the articles.

Settings → General → Search → Quick Search: Order from Additional Content Matrix

Show Additional Content

Not every search is aimed at a specific product. Users who enter “shipping costs” or “returns” are looking for an answer. Your store can therefore display not only products but also categories, manufacturers, news, FAQ entries, and content pages—each type can be enabled individually and displayed as cards or compact chips.

Go to the “Additional Content” section

Category Filter

For large product ranges, a category filter above the search results is helpful. It lists the categories of the found products along with the number of results. Your customers can select one or more categories to narrow down the results without having to search again.

Settings → General → Search → Category Filter on the Search Results Page

No Products, but Content

If the search finds no products but does find categories, pages, or news, the page simply displays “No products found” and shows the remaining results below. The message with search tips only appears if nothing at all was found. from 4.9.57

Categories

Lead searchers directly to the relevant product category, with a category image if desired. This is useful when the search term describes a topic rather than a specific item. Categories under an inactive top-level category do not appear.

Manufacturers / Brands

Direct link to the manufacturer’s page. In “Rich” style, the brand appears as a tile with a logo, using the same design as your store’s brand overview.

News

Relevant news articles with an article image and short description. If the article image is missing, the store uses the image from the assigned news category.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions with brief answers displayed directly in the search results. They address customer service questions before they turn into formal inquiries.

Pages (CMS)

Information and service pages, such as shipping information or instructions. This allows your customers to find editorial content via the search function as well.

Products

These remain the centerpiece of the results page. In the settings, the “Products” line serves as a separator: Everything above it appears above the product list, and everything below it appears below it.

Compact (chips)

All results appear as slim, clickable chips side by side; for categories and brands, a small image or logo can be included in the chip if desired. The space-saving choice for content intended primarily to lead users to further pages.

Rich (Cards)

Results appear as cards with a border, headline, image, and short text (maximum 100 characters), with up to four displayed side by side. Manufacturers appear as brand tiles, similar to the brand overview. If no result in a section has an image or short text, the store automatically displays compact chips. There are no empty cards.

Finding Variants

By default, the search finds only individual items and masters. A variant with its own item number remains invisible, even if someone enters that exact number. Add the line “Master-Slave Products” in “Configure Product Search,” and the search will also find variants. It is crucial that the line appears in the list. To exclude variants again, remove the line.

Settings → General → Search → Configure Product Search

Group Variants in the Preview

Otherwise, for large product families, variants from the same family will fill the entire preview. With this setting, the quick search displays only the master for each family, in place of its best-ranked variant. Anyone who enters a variant’s item number will see its master. Individual items remain unchanged, and the search results page continues to display all variants individually. This setting only takes effect when searching “Master-Slave Products.”

Settings → General → Search → Quick Search: Group Variants with Master, and set “Quick Search: Maximum Candidates When Grouping” (default 1,000) from 4.9.87

Similar Items

If the standard search doesn’t find an item, it searches for item names that sound similar and displays them with the note “No exact matches for … – similar results.” This way, many typos still lead to the right item.

Similar Categories and Brands

The same applies to categories and brands: If the search doesn’t find a match, it displays similar-sounding ones with the note “Similar categories” or “Similar brands.” from 4.9.87

“Did you mean?”

If the quick search finds nothing at all, it suggests words that sound similar based on your product, category, and brand names. If it finds fewer than three products, the standard search suggests previous search terms that start with what you entered and returned results. You can set the number in “Search: Number of Results per Type”; setting it to 0 turns off the suggestions. from 4.9.87

Default Search Sort Order

By default, this is set to “Relevance of Search Results” (clever): The best results, based on the weighting of the search fields, appear at the top. Alternatively, you can sort by product name, item number, price (ascending or descending), highest stock level, newest items, sort order, sales, page views, manufacturer name, or randomly. This setting applies to the quick search and the search results page.

Settings → General → Search → Product Sorting (Search)
Up to version 4.9.86: Settings → Design → Product Listing → Product Sorting (Search)

“Sort By” for Your Customers

Above the results list, your customers can select a different sort order—the same options appear on both category and search pages. You determine which options appear: Product Name, Manufacturer Name, Price (ascending), Price (descending), Most Purchased, Most Viewed, Availability, Newest First. If no option is selected, the menu is hidden. For customer groups where prices are not displayed, the price-based sorting options are not shown.

Settings → Design → Product Listing → Manual Sorting in the Product Listing “Sort By”

Create a filter

Under Products → Product Filters, use the “Add” tab to configure each filter:

• Attribute: a product attribute such as color or size, or one of the built-in filters “Manufacturer,” “Price,” and “Stock Level.”
• Display in the filter box (sidebar) and display in the content (above the product list): no display, checkbox, or radio button—each with or without an image—dropdown menu, or slider (range slider). The slider only works with numerical values.
• Sort Order: The order of the filters. The values in the filter follow the order of the attribute values.
• Categories: If no selection is made, the filter applies everywhere (“global/always”); if a selection is made, it applies only to those categories.
• Display on Search and Display on Manufacturer Page: These options only take effect when a category is selected and additionally apply the filter to these pages.

Price Range with Slider

Create a filter using the “Price” attribute. The price filter always appears as a slider; there is no separate setting for this. The store hides it for customer groups that do not see prices.

A new store does not yet have any filters. The filter bar and filter box will only appear once you create them. The Product Attributes guide explains how to create attributes that can be used as filters.

Filter box in the sidebar

The filter box appears only if your store displays a left column on category pages: Settings → Design → General → Show box column with “categories.” By default, no page is selected, so the filters appear only above the product list. You can enable or disable the box itself under CMS → Box Manager under “Product Filter.”

Filters Instead of Categories on the Left?

By default, the “Product Filters” box is active in the Box Manager, while the “Category Selection” box is not. If you enable the left column, you’ll therefore see the filters first. To change this, go to CMS → Box Manager, enable “Category Selection,” disable “Product Filter,” or change the order of the boxes.

Filters on the Search Page

The search results page displays the same filter bar as the categories. It shows all global filters and the category selection filters for which “Display on Search” is enabled. The numbers after the values refer to the search hits.

Default Search

Active immediately without any setup. Searches for word parts in the fields you selected under “Configure Product Search.” If it finds nothing, it tries similar-sounding words.

It does not recognize word stems: “Jackets” will not find “jacket.” The search terms on the product page can help with this.

Manticore Search

Full-text search integrated with the store system. Recognizes word stems in German and English (“Jacken” finds “Jacke”), compares based on sound if desired, and uses the same search fields and weightings. If it fails, the standard search automatically takes over.

Manticore Search is free. Our support team will set it up for your store and activate it. Here’s how to activate it

Doofinder

External search service; integration included in the shop system. Doofinder replaces the quick search with its own search interface and retrieves your products from the shop’s product feed. You manage synonyms, rankings, and analytics in your Doofinder account. You enter into the contract directly with Doofinder.

Setting up Doofinder

In four steps

1. In your Doofinder account, enter your store’s feed address as the data source. You’ll find it under Settings → Interfaces → Search Services → Doofinder → Information. You can create feeds for other languages, currencies, or shipping countries under Tools → Google Merchant Center.
2. Enter the CSS selector in Doofinder, which is also listed under “Information.” This ensures that your search field opens the Doofinder search.
3. In the store, enter the “Doofinder Store ID (Installation)” and, for each language, the “Doofinder Hash ID” for the search engine. If the Hash ID for a language is left blank, the store will use its own search there.
4. Set “Doofinder Status” to Yes.

What Changes in the Store

• The built-in quick search is disabled, and Doofinder takes over the search field. If Doofinder doesn’t load—for example, due to an ad blocker—the built-in search kicks back in.
• The report under “Shop Search Report” will then remain almost empty. You can view the search terms in your Doofinder account.
• “Transfer Inventory to Feed” includes inventory levels in the feed. The feed is publicly accessible, so the inventory levels are as well.
• “Camera Button for Image Search” displays a camera icon in the search field. Only enable this if image search is active in your Doofinder account. from 4.9.27

Contents

• Product names should include the words your customers use, not just your internal labels.
• Alternative spellings and synonyms are included in the product search terms.
• Product numbers and GTINs are properly maintained.
• Categories have descriptive names so that category chips work properly.
• Frequently asked questions are available as FAQ entries.

Settings

• “Configure Product Search” contains all the fields you need, including search terms and, for variants, “master-slave products.”
• The number of results per type is tailored to your product range.
• Filters are set up, with the price filter as a slider.
• Dimensions in all formats are enabled if your product names include measurements such as M 8 x 16.
• The report is reviewed regularly; once a month is sufficient.