Search Merchandiser (Spring '22 Release)

Our new Search Merchandiser is an easy way for administrators to modify their search results in Answers experiences using a drag-and-drop, point-and-click interface. This tool allows you to: reorder entities, reorder verticals, and change featured snippets directly within the search results.

This will be particularly useful for Administrators who aren’t familiar with Yext’s Query Rules and Experience Training, or those who simply prefer to modify results through a quick and easy visual interface.

Example use cases:

  • Reordering entities: A merchant at a clothing company wants to position the snow hat above the baseball cap in the search results for the term “hat” during the winter months.
  • Reordering verticals: A restaurant manager wants the ‘Menu Items’ vertical to appear above the ‘FAQs’ vertical for the term “vegetarian options.”
  • Changing a Featured Snippet: A university administrator wants to modify the answer selected from the student handbook for the question: “Are students required to live on campus?”

How to Use Search Merchandiser

Access the Search Merchandiser via Test Search, either full screen or the side bar, by clicking on the pencil icon to edit the search results.

You’ll be presented three modes corresponding to the use cases above:

In Reorder Entities and Reorder Verticals modes, move entities or verticals into the boosted and buried zones by either dragging and dropping or using the boost and bury icons. Set the order in the boosted and buried zones and add new entities to the result set. This creates a query rule with:

  • Criteria searchTermExactlyMatches set equal to the query entered
  • Actions BOOST_ENTITIES, BURY_ENTITIES, BOOST_VERTICALS, and/or BURY_VERTICALS
  • The name of the query rule defaults to When search term is “[search term]”. You can edit this name before saving the query rule.

In Change Featured Snippets mode, you can edit the featured snippet predicted by the algorithm with the Featured Snippet modal. You’ll only see this mode if the experience has a vertical with Document Search turned on.

To learn more about the new Search Merchandiser feature, visit the Search Merchandiser training unit.

To learn more about Query Rules, visit the Query Rules training module.

To learn more about editing Featured Snippets, visit the Experience Training unit.

Turn on the Spring ‘22: Search Merchandiser (early access) account feature to use this feature during the Early Access period. This feature will automatically be turned on for all accounts at General Availability for the Spring '22 Release.

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