Hello Hitchhikers,
Update: This is now live
This update will improve location detection by incorporating data from the Knowledge Graph to improve place search.
Background
Today, we find the most likely place a user is looking for based on region popularity, geobiasing and text match. However, this poses a problem for queries like Locations in Green Bay. There are two cities in the US named exactly Green Bay
View on Mapbox
Today, if you are searching from Wisconsin we will pick Green Bay, Wisconsin but if you are searching from Virginia we will pick Green Bay, Virginia. While this makes sense, what if the Knowledge Graph ONLY includes locations in Wisconsin. Chances are the user meant Green Bay Wisconsin even though they are searching from Virginia.
Algo Changes
This algorithm change filters down potential locations to only places that have a nearby location. In the example above, Green Bay, Virginia would never be applied as a filter because the Knowledge Graph does not include any locations near Green Bay Virgina.
Example
Here is an example real-world improvement for a Financial Services client. You can see how we now pick the right location for the client and show relevant results.
Here is another example for Hotel Chain. We are now correctly filtering on Ibiza.
Whose Impacted
Clients who have a low density of locations but have locations spread out across a large area will see the biggest impact from this change. Bounding Box was a similar technique that’s helpful for regional business and this brings some of these same benefits to any business that has a low number of locations.
For any client with a high number of locations, e.g. Thousands of ATMs, they won’t see much of a difference because there are usually always locations nearby any point.
Regressions
We’ve tested this change with every live experience to confirm this is an improvement. We are very satisfied with the search quality improvements which is why we are moving forward with this change.
The only notable difference that is a bit more mixed is if you search for a place like Ardmore, TN. For one client they didn’t have any locations in Ardmore, TN so we matched on Ardmore, PA. Neither result is perfect - previously we would just show nothing and now we show results in Ardmore, PA. Long term the ideal experience here would be a special no results experience that clearly stated we understood what the user was looking for and there are no locations within 50 miles of that location but this is not ready today.
Recommendations
Keep Using Bounding Box - If a client is regional, we still recommend setting up a bounding box. This has additional improvements on top of this change.
Remove Synonyms - If any synonyms were added to fix this type of issue you should test our removing these synonyms once this feature goes live. You should use the diff testing tool to confirm there aren’t any regressions. If you need any help with this please reach out to me (mshaw@yext.com).
Feedback
Finally, if you have any feedback around this change we’d love to hear it. We have some more location improvements coming in the near future so stay tuned for updates!