567 results for “crime fiction” books! Let’s sort by ‘Bestselling’ to see which ones other readers are reading first

When faced with pages and pages of results for a search query, shoppers need help in bringing to the top relevant results that match their decision-making process without limiting the number of product results returned. Sorting lets shoppers customize the order in which results are shown in the results grid. Shoppers can arrange the results according to specific sorting criteria, without changing the total number of results shown.

Common sorting criteria that shoppers often use to help decide which products are most relevant for them are popularity (trending items), price (low to high, high to low), best sellers (most popular), newest first (dated added to product catalogue), and featured (top products).

Sorting can be used in conjunction with Facets & Filters to help shoppers pinpoint the products they are looking for by combining product attributes like color, e.g. all “red” products, with sorting criteria such as “lowest price” first to identify products of interest.

design tip

You can use the SERP UI X Components to display sort criteria in the results grid.

Spot the difference

Sorting is associated with the order in which the results appear in the results grid, whereas Facets & Filters lets shoppers narrow down the number of results shown by selecting filters, usually based on product attributes. The results for the search query must match those product attributes in order to be shown in the results grid.

Try Sorting to…

• Help shoppers pick out the results that best match their search criteria when dealing with a large list of results.
• Allow shoppers to customize the order in which they view the results.
• Change the order of results according to specific criteria such as name, price, popularity, or even criteria such as publication date or date added to the product catalogue.