Answers - Experience Training - Misspellings - Singular vs. Plural

Search Best Practices - Search Configuration
1

I have a general question for what we’re meant to do with training recommendations that correct plural searches to singular. See below for an example. The original search term is correct, it’s just pluralized. What is the recommended action here?

  • original search term: nebulizers
  • Recommendation from training: nebulizers→nebulizer

From my perspective, the search term “nebulizers” and “nebulizer” should return basically the same result set. I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that the same is true for most other examples like this, i.e., the plural form should operate the same as the singular form. In testing, that’s already the case for “nebulizers” vs. “nebulizer”.

I assume that I’m alright approving these training recommendations. Is there any reason that I shouldn’t?–aside from the rare case where the result sets are different between plural and singular versions of the same word?

2

Hey @Zach_Shearer - in general, differences between singular and plural nouns in search terms should be handled automatically, but it looks like you’ve run into a case where it is not!

One consideration here is that if you do accept the suggestion, then we will show the spelling correction whenever the “nebulizers” search is run. So it might actually be better to reject it (so the spelling correction is never shown) and address this case by adding “nebulizer/nebulizers” as a synonym.

Let us know if you have any other questions!

3

Thanks @Katja_Ritchie . I’ve tested and see the issue that you called out with the spelling correction. For now, I’ll reject those “plural to singular” recommendations for now. I appreciate your help on this!