Magento Search Engine Relevance Issues

Question

We currently have a Magento website with a large inventory, we are having some issues with relevance of ON SITE search results. We are currently set to 'combine like and fulltext' but the results are aren't what we expected. For example searching for 'Lee Child' (the author), brings up three Lee Child books, then three books with author as 'Lauren Child' and then the rest of the Lee Child books.

So essentially we want to give preference to the full text search and view those results BEFORE the like search results. We also want to display in stock products before out of stock products.

We have a test server and I read a forum post that said at the moment magento splits the search query and show products which have at least one of the words.

We modified line 342 (for CE1.4.2) of the Mage_CatalogSearch_Model_Mysql4_Fulltext:

if ($like) {
$likeCond = '(' . join(' OR ', $like) . ')';
}

and change “OR” with “AND”`

Path: app/code/core/Mage/CatalogSearch/Model/Mysql4/Fulltext.php

This is a fix for an earlier edition and we are currently running 1.5.0.1.

Is there something I'm missing to tinker with the Magento search results relevance or can you point me in the right direction in the code?

Answer 1

To make an AND search instead of OR, you will need to rewrite the class

Mage_CatalogSearch_Model_Resource_Fulltext

In the method

public function prepareResult($object, $queryText, $query)

you want to switch the part

$likeCond = '(' . join(' OR ', $like) . ')';

to

$likeCond = '(' . join(' AND ', $like) . ')';

Be sure to reindex the search index afterwards to have an effect.

Answer 2

I believe the missing "keys" are the following two items:

<action method="setDefaultDirection"><string>desc</string></action>
<action method="setDefaultOrder"><string>relevance</string></action>

You should be able to acomplish this a couple different ways... in either case you'll need to make local copies of the said files.

1) If you don't already have one, add a local copy of 'catalogsearch.xml'

Note: Since Magento layouts work "cascading" it's a good idea to first check any "other" Magento layout directories available (other than the 'base'). For example, in my case we use EE, so we check the 'enterprise' layout directory first to copy files before looking in the 'base' directory.

Common locations of 'catalogsearch.xml':

/app/design/frontend/base/default/layout/catalogsearch.xml (as last resort) /app/design/frontend/enterprise/default/layout/catalogsearch.xml (for EE) Note: There may be a different location with PE as well... I'm not 100%.

2) Add the following within the 'catalogsearch_result_index' section in 'catalogsearch.xml':

<action method="setDefaultDirection"><string>desc</string></action>
<action method="setDefaultOrder"><string>relevance</string></action>

For example:

Referencing the 'search_result_list' handle (ie enterprise layout):

<reference name="search_result_list">
    <action method="setDefaultDirection"><string>desc</string></action>
    <action method="setDefaultOrder"><string>relevance</string></action>
</reference>

So it would end up looking similar to:

<catalogsearch_result_index>
...other code

    <reference name="search_result_list">
        <action method="setDefaultDirection"><string>desc</string></action>
        <action method="setDefaultOrder"><string>relevance</string></action>
    </reference>

...other code

</catalogsearch_result_index>

Or you can place directly within the 'search_result_list' block (ie base layout):

<catalogsearch_result_index translate="label">
    <label>Quick Search Form</label>
    <reference name="root">
        <action method="setTemplate"><template>page/3columns.phtml</template></action>
    </reference>
    <reference name="left">
        <block type="catalogsearch/layer" name="catalogsearch.leftnav" after="currency" template="catalog/layer/view.phtml"/>
    </reference>
    <reference name="content">
        <block type="catalogsearch/result" name="search.result" template="catalogsearch/result.phtml">
            <block type="catalog/product_list" name="search_result_list" template="catalog/product/list.phtml">

               <action method="setDefaultDirection"><string>desc</string></action>
               <action method="setDefaultOrder"><string>relevance</string></action>

                <block type="catalog/product_list_toolbar" name="product_list_toolbar" template="catalog/product/list/toolbar.phtml">
                    <block type="page/html_pager" name="product_list_toolbar_pager"/>
                </block>
                <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>empty</layout><count>6</count></action>
                <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>one_column</layout><count>5</count></action>
                <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>two_columns_left</layout><count>4</count></action>
                <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>two_columns_right</layout><count>4</count></action>
                <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>three_columns</layout><count>3</count></action>
                <action method="setToolbarBlockName"><name>product_list_toolbar</name></action>
            </block>
            <action method="setListOrders"/>
            <action method="setListModes"/>
            <action method="setListCollection"/>
        </block>
    </reference>
</catalogsearch_result_index>

3) Make sure to dump the Magento cache/storage and reindex.

The other option would be to place them as 'hidden' form elements in 'form.mini.phtml'

1) Place the following within the form in 'form.mini.phtml':

<input type="hidden" name="order" value="relevance">
<input type="hidden" name="dir" value="desc">

Now, the beginning of the form in 'form.mini.phtml' would look similar to:

<form id="search_mini_form" action="<?php echo $this->helper('catalogsearch')->getResultUrl() ?>" method="get">
        <input type="hidden" name="order" value="relevance">
        <input type="hidden" name="dir" value="desc">
    ...other code

2) Change the path to 'form.mini.phtml' template within the 'default' section ('header' reference handle) in 'catalogsearch.xml':

<default>
        <reference name="header">
            <block type="core/template" name="top.search" as="topSearch" template="custom_template/catalogsearch/form.mini.phtml"/>
        </reference>
... other code

3) Make sure to dump the Magento cache/storage and reindex.

Final note... Below is the "custom template" path structure we have it setup as. Located in the 'enterprise' directory, so my custom files would be located: /app/design/frontend/enterprise/custom_template/layout/catalogsearch.xml /app/design/frontend/enterprise/custom_template/template/catalogsearch/form.mini.phtml

Hope this makes sense and helps.