Manage the search ranking criteria for your product catalogue with no-code controls

Equalize allows you to configure the weighting of the product attributes used for ranking product results in the search engine. It determines the relevance and importance of the searchable product catalogue fields where specific relevant values matching the search query are found.

Should color be more relevant than specific product features? Should any terms found in the product description take preference over the name? Should products with no stock be last in the results list? Equalize helps you determine which product attributes the search engine takes as more relevant when ranking the results on the search engine results page (SERP).

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For more information on how products are ranked in the results, see Product Scoring.

Equalize in two different ways

The Equalize management tool is used to rearrange the product ranking based on the relevance of the product attributes to fulfill the merchandising goals. This tool encompasses two functionalities in one:

• Equalize: only one configuration is active at a time and textual match is the single scoring criterion to set up.

• Multiequalize: multiple configurations for different combination of filters can be active at the same time and there are three scoring criteria to set up: textual match, global business rules, and function score.

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As one or another functionality is set up through the Instance Management tool during implementation, contact your Key Account Manager to choose the one that meets your needs best.

With Multiequalize, you can also get greater granularity by setting up multiple configurations based on different segments (language, store, device, etc.) and weighting the product catalogue attributes through three scoring criteria.

The three scoring criteria you can configure are the following:

• Textual match: determine the weight of certain product catalogue attributes when there is a textual match between the query searched and the text present in these particular attributes.

  
  

  For example, if shoppers are looking for a “red dress” in their search and your product catalogue only has two red dresses, you can give more relevance to the Color attribute rather than to the Name attribute. Thus, products whose Color attribute matches the search query, such as red skirts, will be ranked in a higher position as they have red as the color, even if they don’t have dress in their name attribute.

• Global business rules: boost with positive values or demote with negative ones the relevance of a product catalogue attribute upon others present in the product results to enhance product ranking.

  
  

  For example, when setting up your product catalogue, you may have added several product attributes such as On sale, or Latest added to your products. During Black Friday sales, you can increase the weighting for the On sale attribute to make it more important and decrease the weighting for Latest added attribute. Doing this, the search engine will place in first positions the products which are on sale and in last positions those which are new in the catalogue.

• Function score: increase or decrease the product scoring based on customized KPIs, whose values are numbers, previously set up. Consider that zero is also a valid weight.

  
  

  If you have certain products with no stock and you don’t want them to be listed on the SERP. You can set up the Stock attribute via the function score criterion to decrease the relevance of the products out of stock. They’ll be hidden at the bottom of the results list.

Equalize is used to calculate the textual match points of the product’s overall score while Multiequalize allows you to calculate the global business rules points and the function score points as well.

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To boost a specific attribute without changing the overall search engine ranking behavior, use Attribute Ranking.

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Adjusting Equalize values changes the search engine behavior for all product results.

Spot the difference

Equalize and Attribute Ranking both use the product attributes of your product catalogue to determine the ranking of results. However, their purpose and function is different. Equalize determines the overall importance of the product catalogue attribute in the search, used as the weighting for calculating the product scoring. Whereas, Attribute Ranking changes the order in which products appear according to a specific product attribute value, boosting or burying products with that specific product attribute higher or lower in the results.

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For more information on how products are scored and ordered in the results, see Product Scoring.

Use Equalize to…

• Adjust the search ranking criteria according to merchandising goals, for example, show in-stock products higher in the search results.
• Improve findability by making sure the right type of products is listed first.
• Determine the weighting of product attribute fields in product score calculation.

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Check out how to tailor product attributes weighting with Equalize.