Understand search results using Explain
The Search view of the Playboard's Explain tool helps understand which scoring criteria participate in the total product score, why products are positioned the way they are on the search engine results page (SERP), and how product position or score can be modified to adapt the product result list to your commerce store needs and business requirements.
Getting started with Search
You land in the Search view after launching a query in the search bar (or selecting a top query bubble) from the Explain main screen.
The main screen includes two sections to check the position of the products on the SERP for the selected query and the breakdown of a product score when one or more products are selected:
Results grid
All search results for the query are shown in the grid, with detailed information on the product (product name, position in the ranking, and image) and the total score. When hovering over the product, the product ID is displayed, so you can copy and use it easily in other Playboard features and management tools.
Each result also shows a bar showing in percentages the scoring criteria used to determine the product’s overall score and their distinctive colors and icons. Boosted and buried products have an arrow icon as well to represent their status; the total score is highlighted in green for boosted and red for buried products.
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If you boost or bury products or product attributes using the Query Ranking management tool, it may take several minutes for the changes to be reflected in the bar chart.
If you scroll down, the grid refreshes and shows other products with a lower score.
You can use facets to narrow down the search; products shown in the results grid will update, so you can really feel your clients’ search experience. Click the funnel icon on the top left corner to expand facets. On the right, the icons for the scoring criteria are displayed and, when hovering, a tooltip with a short explanation about each of them is shown.
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If you optimize the search results using the Playboard tooling, it may take several minutes for the changes to be reflected in the results grid.
Product score panel
If you click a result from the grid, this product is added to the product score panel. Click the view selection arrow to expand the product score panel where a table is displayed with detailed information about which points correspond to each scoring criterion for the product. You can select more than one product from the results grid to compare results.
In the table, the breakdown of points for each scoring criteria is listed, as well as the product’s overall score. These criteria are:
- Equalize: points are calculated based on textual relevance and global importance of product attributes set in the Playboard Equalize management tool.
- Query ranking: points are calculated based on boosted or buried products or product attributes for a query set in the Playboard Query Ranking management tool. Boosted points are in green and buried ones in red.
- Wisdom of the crowd: points are calculated according to collective shopper behavior. For example, the more a product is clicked or added to cart by shoppers, the more points it gets.
- Customization: points are calculated based on other specific customization rules that affect the relevance of products.
- Term position: for queries with more than one term, points are calculated based on the terms provided in the query that match the order of the terms in the configured fields of the product catalog. For example, if a shopper searches for “red dress” and the attribute Color is configured to be first in the query, results for dresses that are red will be boosted, compared to a search for “dress red”.
If any of the scoring criteria isn't on the list it's because it doesn't affect the product's overall scoring. The product score panel also shows the tiebreakers for the product results, in the event there are any, as well as the value for each tiebreaker value.
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Customization and term position criteria as well as tiebreakers, all affecting the products overall scoring, are defined and integrated into the Empathy Platform thanks to the Search microservice. As they cannot be configured via the Playboard, contact your Key Account Manager if you require any modification.
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Get to know more about how product scoring is calculated in Product Scoring.
On top of the table on the left, you can see the query the products belong to. There are also shortcuts to other tools in the Playboard that can help you change and improve the product score of a search result. Each link takes you directly to the corresponding tool's configurations list. The tools that can be accessed are Equalize, Synonymize, Blacklist, Promotion, Redirection, and Query Ranking.
Visualizing search results
Explain is typically used to view search results for a given query. To view the results:
Select the filters and enter a search query.
Check the results grid to see the score and order of the products.
Click a product to add it to the product score panel and expand the view. You see the list with the points corresponding to the scoring criteria and the tiebreakers.
Take action on what you see using the shortcults of the Playboard tools.
For example, you enter a query for “almond milk” and you want to learn more about the product score of the first result, as you see in the results grid that it has a high score. You click the product result in the grid to add it to the view selection. When you expand it, you see a detailed list helping you understand how the different scoring criteria determine the product overall score and the points associated with each criterion.
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Any changes to product ranking made using the Playboard tools may take several minutes or hours to be reflected in Explain. For example, if you apply a boost to a product using the Query Ranking management tool, the boosted product may not appear as the first in the bar chart if you check Explain straightaway.
Comparing multiple search results
Explain is not only used to visualize scores for individual products, but it can be used to compare two or more results as well. To compare more than one result:
Select the filters and enter a search query.
Click more than one product in the results grid.
Expand the view selection to see the scoring criteria points for each product, side by side.
Check the tiebreakers for the selected results, if there are any.
Take action on what you see using the shortcults of the Playboard tools.
For example, let’s say you want to use the Explain tool to understand the product ranking for the query “dress”. Once the search results are presented in the grid, you compare the score of two results that have different scores despite having similar product names: “floral pattern dress” and “floral patterned dress”.
When you click on both results, the expanded product score panel shows the points for each product by scoring criteria, so they can be compared side by side.
As you want to learn why one result is ranked before the other, you check the tiebreakers for each product in the panel to see that price has been defined as a tiebreaker, forcing the “floral pattern dress” result to be ranked before the other result.
Visualizing Semantics results
The query entered in the search bar does not always offer results. To avoid shoppers' frustration when the traditional keyword-based search service returns no results, you can implement Semantics recommendations in your commerce store as a fallback method. The Semantics recommendations are relevant product suggestions based on query semantic affinities. They're normally displayed as product carousels that inspire your shoppers and guide them through alternative results semantically related to the original query.
When Semantics is active for your instance, Explain shows the product recommendations that are displayed in carousels to your shoppers when their query does have no results in your commerce store.
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Explain includes as many carousels as configured for your commerce store in the Semantics section of the Instance Management Console.
When you click one of the queries suggested on top of each carousel, Explain replaces the query with no results with the one you selected and the results update displaying the details about their product scoring. Now you can check each product and its position, along with its score and the scoring criteria involved, as normally done in Explain.
Downloading product results
Click the Download button to save a .csv file with the top products of your query results, from 100 to 1 2500, depending on your preferences when downloading them.
Should you want to include the different points given by each of the scoring criteria involved in the total product score for this query, switch on the Confidential data toggle to include them in the downloadable file.