I love that I always find my top brands on the first page of my search

Product ranking lets you bury or boost the positioning of specific products in the product catalogue. Product ranking can be used to promote or decrease the appearance of specific products in both the search engine results page (SERP) and in the product category pages (PCP).

You can boost a product so that it appears among the first positions of the results list. Alternatively, you can bury a product so that it appears as the last position. It can be used to highlight key products that you want to promote for a given period or hide those that offer less beneficial margins, for example.

For product ranking on the SERP, you indicate the specific search query you want to be associated with the product boost or bury, regardless of whether that search term appears in the searchable field for the product in your product catalogue.

For example, for the search query “black dress”, by default, the best selling black dresses are shown in the first positions of the results list. You want to promote a specific model, “Linen-blend A-line black dress” that currently appears on the second page of the results, since it has a lower popularity compared to other results. You can use the Boost option to send the product to the first position of the results, regardless of its organic product scoring and dynamic relevance.

You can choose to boost or bury several products at the same time. Products are organized in the order in which you boost or bury them; however, you can rearrange the order using the Empathy Platform Playboard by dragging and dropping the products as required.

Spot the difference

Product Ranking, Attribute Ranking, and Equalize all affect the positioning of product results. However, their purpose is different. Product Ranking is designed to give a one-off boost to (or downgrade) individual products, making them appear at the top or the bottom of the list. Attribute Ranking is used to boost or bury groups of products associated with a specific product attribute, whereas Equalize determines the overall weighting of the product attributes in the search results.

Try Product Ranking to…

• Bring products to the top of the results list for a specific search query.
• Feature key products in the first page of your product category page according to merchandising goals.
• Override organic product scoring for individual products in a single click.
• Hide products deeper in the product results that offer lower margins, are out of stock, or are new season items that you don’t want to promote during sale time.

note

You can change the ranking of specific products using the Query Ranking tool in Empathy Platform Playboard.

The inner workings of Product Ranking

When you boosts a specific product, the product’s organic score is altered by adding an additional value (1,000,000) that pushes the product to the top of the results list. In the same way, if you decide to bury a product, a negative value (-1,000,000) is applied to the product score, causing it to be placed in the last position of the results. If a boost is applied to several products at the same time, the boosted products are ordered according to the order in which you apply the boost. You can change the order of the boosted or buried products.

For example, the product “Green Tied-front T-shirt” has an organic product score of 15,000. You decide to boost this product, which adds an additional value of 1,000,000 to the product score. The new product score is 1,015,000, pushing the product to the top of the results list. On the other hand, if you decide to downgrade the same product, a negative value is applied to the product score, resulting in a product score of -985,000 and pushing the product to the bottom of the list.