Third-Party Verticals | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

Overview

While most verticals in your Search experience will be powered by Yext Content, you also have the option to return results not stored in the Yext platform in the form of links via a third-party vertical.

You will need to set up the search engine directly through the third party. There you’ll specify what domains should be searched to surface results (e.g., whether you want the full domain or to exclude certain sections or file types). Keep in mind that you are not able to configure how results are returned like you are with Yext verticals in the Search configuration. The Search experience sends the raw query input to the third party and then renders the results returned by the provided endpoint.

Search currently supports the following third-party verticals:

  • Google Programmable Search Engine
  • Bing Custom Search
  • Zendesk
  • Algolia

Below you’ll find the code snippets needed to set this up in your Search configuration, which must be added via the JSON editor to the verticals object. You can use any vertical key you would like; we’ll use links in the code snippets below.

Google Programmable Search Engine

Property Required Description
name Yes Display name of the vertical
source Yes "GOOGLE_CSE"
apiKey Yes The API Key for Google Programmable Search. We recommend enabling billing and increasing the quota limit to support the volume of queries.
cx Yes Also known as “Search Engine ID” in Google Programmable Search portal.
siteRestricted No The Site Restricted Google API supports an unlimited number of searches and allows you to specify up to 10 domains to search. Reference this Google API doc for more info.
useSynonyms No This allows you to specify which Google Programmable Search Engine synonyms should be used to surface results.
{
  "verticals": {
    "links": { // Update to the vertical key you want to use
      "name": "Links", 
      "source": "GOOGLE_CSE",
      "apiKey": "{{YOUR_API_KEY}}",
      "cx": "{{YOUR_CX}",
      "siteRestricted": true,
      "useSynonyms": "ALL_SYNONYMS"
    }
  }
}

Bing

Property Required Description
name Yes Display name of the vertical
source Yes "BING_CSE"
customConfig Yes The unique identifier for your Bing Custom Search instance.
subscriptionKey Yes The subscription key received when signing up for Bing Custom Search.
{
  "verticals": {
    "links": { // Update to the vertical configuration ID you want to use
      "name": "Links", // Links vertical display name in experience
      "source": "BING_CSE",
      "customConfig": "{{YOUR_CUSTOMCONFIG}}",
      "subscriptionKey": "{{YOUR_SUBSCRIPTIONKEY}}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Zendesk

Property Required Description
name Yes Display name of the vertical
source Yes "ZENDESK"
subdomain Yes Zendesk subdomain, e.g, {subdomain}.zendesk.com. You can find more information on Zendesk subdomains in Zendesk’s Where can I find my Zendesk subdomain help article.
{
  "verticals": {
    "links": { // Update to the vertical configuration ID you want to use
      "name": "Links", 
      "source": "ZENDESK",
      "subdomain": "{{YOUR_ZENDESK_SUBDOMAIN_STRING}}"
    }
  }
}
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