How to bury product attributes for your browsing experience
Burying product attributes in the browse experience lets you downplay entire groups of products on category or collection pages based on shared characteristics such as color, size, brand, or material.
When shoppers browse a category like Dresses, Boots, or Suits without typing a query, products that match buried attribute values are pushed lower in the product category page (PCP) so that more strategic items can appear first, while the underlying relevance rules of the browse experience remain intact. By configuring burying rules at attribute level instead of for individual products, you can consistently reduce the visibility of less aligned, low‑priority, or off‑campaign assortments across browsing journeys without removing them from your catalog.
In Empathy Platform, burying product attributes in the browsing experience is managed from the Playboard using the Results Ranking management tool, so you can adjust product positions and immediately see the impact on the category or collection results page.
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Willing to know more about all that you can do by using Results Ranking? Check the Results Ranking management tool page to discover it.
Burying product attributes for your browsing experience
Imagine your clothing store is running a spring campaign focused on light, pastel tones in the Pullover category. When shoppers browse this category, you notice that many black pullovers appear in the top positions and visually dominate the page. To better support the campaign, you configure a bury rule for the color attribute value “black” in the Pullover category so these darker pullovers move toward the bottom of the product category page, while pastel shades like white, pink, and light blue are shown first. This way, darker pullovers remain available for shoppers who scroll, but the most visible results reinforce your seasonal color story and merchandising goals.
To bury this product attribute in your browsing experience, perform the following steps:
Open your Playboard and go to Play > Results Ranking.
Click the + New button in the top left corner to create a new Results Ranking configuration. The Configuration panel displays.
In the Details section, make sure the toggle button is switched on so that the configuration is active once it's saved.
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If you turn off the configuration, you can turn it on later using the action tools in the results ranking list screen.
Enter a name for your configuration. For example, "Spring pastel campaign".
Select the endpoint your configuration relates to. In this case, select the Browse endpoint.
In the Endpoint section, indicate the attribute and the attribute value that the bury configuration should apply to. For example, "category" and "pullover" respectively.
Select the desired options for the filters to customize the scenario for your configuration. Remember that the available filters depend on your implementation. For this example, select "English" for the Language filter.
In the Settings section, go to Product Ranking to configure a soft ranking. Soft ranking modifies product positioning by slightly decreasing the score of products whose attributes are being buried, causing them to appear lower on the product category page.
- Click the + (plus) icon. The Product ranking pop-up window appears.
- Choose whether the configuration should be always active or scheduled for a determined period. For this example, set the configuration to be always active.
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Review the steps in Scheduling a configuration to learn how to schedule product ranking configurations.
- Select a product attribute and a value for it. You can search for the attributes and values to find the desired ones. If an attribute doesn't have any value available, you cannot create a configuration for it. In the example, the category is "color" and the value is "black".
- Click the Bury button to add the configuration to the list.
In the Preview section, review the product ranking as it will appear to your shoppers. Optionally, enter a keyword in the search box to narrow down the results. You can also select a date to preview the results for a specific time and check product positions in real time based on your configuration. Results update automatically as you make changes to the configuration.
Once finished, click Save to apply the configuration. The saved configuration is displayed in the configuration list on the main Results Ranking screen.