Shopify site search not working? Easy fix

Shopify site search is one of the most important features on any shopify store. If your have issues in your shopify search, it could mean lost revenue since your site search is the key to product discovery. If the default shopify search is not working, you can follow the steps below to fix it. This method involves creating a Shopify custom search engine using expertrec and replacing the default Shopify search with expertrec.

 

Fix your shopify search not working issue

Theme Change

Try changing the theme of your shopify site to a more simpler theme. In most of the search conflicts, this could solve your shopify search not working issue. Here are some shopify themes curated by the shopify theme themselves.

 

Checking for plugin incompatibilities

In most cases there could be another plugin that conflicts with your website search function. Try uninstalling plugins one by one and checking if your site search function works properly. The usual culprits are security and SEO plugins.

Clear Site Cache

If you are using any speed plugin for increasing the speed of your shopify site, try clearing the cache and then check your search function. Checking without clearning cache can show older products and not the recently updated ones.

Expertrec Smart Search Bar ($9 per month for Unlimited products)

This method involves replacing your shopify search with an external search plugin such as expertrec. Here is a demo website that uses the expertrec smart search bar.

1. Install Expertrec’s Shopify search extension from here.
2. Once you install the extension, you will be directed to your control panel where you will have to enable your search engine by toggling on the enable search extension.
3. This method also adds voice search as well to your shopify store. This voice search works on chrome browsers only as of now. 

Creating a Shopify custom search engine

This method is proven to fix shopify search not working issue since it creates a search engine that is not dependant on the internal workings of Shopify. In this method, we create a shopify custom search engine that crawls your shopify store based on the product sitemap that you provide in your expertrec control panel.

1. Create your Shopify custom search engine from here.
2. Log in to your Shopify admin panel.
3. Click-> Online store->Themes-> Edit code
4. Go to https://cse.expertrec.com/csedashboard/home/code to copy your custom search code.
5. Choose a theme.liquid.
6. Add the following code just below the head section. (Add your shopify search api key in the following code).

   <ci-search></ci-search>
   <script>
   (function() {
   var id = 'YOUR_SHOPIFY_SEARCH_API_KEY';
   var ci_search = document.createElement('script');
   ci_search.type = 'text/javascript';
   ci_search.async = true;
   ci_search.src = 'https://cse.expertrec.com/api/js/ci_common.js?id=' + id;
   var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
   s.parentNode.insertBefore(ci_search, s);
   })();
   </script>

    

   

7. This will add expertrec’s search bar to your Shopify website.

Google custom search

Google custom search is a free search engine that can replace your shopify search. The major drawback of this method is that it contains ads that can make you lose your hard earned traffic to your competitors or websites that display ads inside Google custom search. To implement a Google custom search inside your shoofly store, follow the steps below.

1. Go to cse.google.com, enter your website URL and create a custom search engine.
2. Under restrict pages using schema.org, enter “product”.
3. Click on get code and copy paste the code that looks similar to
   1. <script async src=”https://cse.google.com/cse.js?cx=07474d81697f1080f”></script>
      <div class=”gcse-search”></div>
4. Log in to your Shopify admin panel.
5. Click-> Online store->Themes-> Edit code
6. Choose theme.liquid and paste the code there.
7. This adds google custom search to your shopify store.

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