Magento search is probably the weakest link of the entire platform. Magento search not working is a very common issue faced by store owners and more often than not, it is better to move to third-party search providers to improve the search experience.
Create a search engine for your Magento store
Magento search extension
Magento stores can easily add functionality by using extensions from the Magento marketplace. To replace the default search of Magento, we will take a look at an extension first and then see a non-plugin method to replace the Magento search.
For this, we will be using ExpertRec’s Magento search plugin. If you are on Magento 1 then you can find the plugin here.
Installing the plugin is pretty straightforward. Once the plugin is installed and activated, you will see that the default Magento search has been replaced by ExpertRec’s site search. In case the plugin method fails, try the crawl-based solution below.
Crawl based search for Magento
- Navigate to https://cse.expertrec.com/newuser?platform=cse and signup with your Google ID.
- Enter your website’s URL when prompted. You can select a server location near you and add the URL of your sitemap if you wish to. These will be auto-detected otherwise.
- You can play around with the settings and customize the UI as the crawl runs. Once it is complete, you can check out a fully functional demo before taking the search to your website.
- You can take the search to your website with little to no effort. All you need to do is to paste the code snippet available on the dashboard on your website.
ExpertRec comes with more customization options that you can explore. You can read this article to find a more detailed guide on the installation and configuration. If you face any troubles during the setup, you can contact support here.
