Prominently feature key brands without noticeably affecting other search results

Attribute Ranking lets you boost or bury a group of products based on product attribute's values. Attribute ranking can be used to promote or decrease the positioning of specific product groups in search engine results pages (SERP) and product category pages (PCP).

By boosting a specific product attribute value, products that match that attribute are moved up in position in the list, overriding their organic product scoring. Alternatively, products with a specific attribute value can be buried, sending them deeper on the results pages.

For attribute ranking on the SERP, you indicate the specific search query to be associated with the attribute boost or bury; that search term must appear in the searchable fields for the product in your product catalogue.

For example, for the search query “dress”, the best-selling black dresses are shown in the first positions on the results list. You want to promote a specific brand, Brand A, that has 7 dresses that currently appear on the second and third page of the results since they have a lower popularity compared to other results. You can use the Boost option to send all dresses for that brand higher in the results. While Brand A dresses may appear before all other results for the specific search query, they're ordered according to their product score. Since Brand A dress 1 has a higher product score due to dynamic relevance and term matching is placed first, Brand A dress 2 has a lower matching score compared to dress 1 appears next, and so on successively.

interact

You can change the ranking of specific products using the Query Ranking tool in Empathy Platform Playboard. Discover how to do it on Boost or bury products with Query Ranking.

Collective anonymous behavior is a key aspect of arranging products on the SERP, but not the only one. You can influence the product ranking on your results page by modifying the relevance of a product attribute’s specific value.

As a manager of an online furniture and decor store, you’ve observed a huge increase in shoppers’ abandonment related to the query “coffee table”. When a shopper enters the “coffee table” query, the product results returned apply to a coffee corner concept, such as mugs, cups, teapots, etc., but not the table itself.

• What can you do?
  You can enhance your shoppers' search and discovery experience by improving search product results ranking and relevance.

• How can you do it?
  You can adjust the importance of certain attribute values at query time. As the “coffee table” query offers inaccurate results, you need to create a soft Query Ranking configuration to boost a product attribute value and tip the scales to valuable results on the SERP. So, for this example, you can boost the value table of the Type product attribute, since this attribute indicates the type of furniture the product belongs to. Like this, the products having table as a value for the Type attribute are placed higher in the results grid compared to the products related to “coffee”.

Note that boosting a specific attribute value with a soft Query Ranking configuration isn't the only way to make determined products stand out in your shoppers' search and discovery journeys. You can also take advantage of other Empathy Platform search features, like Product Ranking to fine-tune the shoppers' discovery journeys—for example, by boosting particular products that you want to push to the first positions on the results page with a hard Query Ranking configuration.

Spot the difference

Attribute Ranking and Equalize both use the product attributes of your product catalogue to determine the ordering of results. However, their purpose is different. Attribute Ranking changes the order in which products appear according to a specific product attribute value, boosting or burying products with that specific value higher or lower in the results. Whereas, Equalize determines the overall importance of the product attribute in calculating the product scoring and there is no query related to the configuration.

Try Attribute Ranking to…

• Bring specific groups of products to the top of your product catalogue for a specific search query.
• Feature key product groups in the first page of your product category page according to merchandising goals.
• Hide product groups deeper in the product results that offer lower margins, are out of stock, or that you don’t want to actively promote.

The inner workings of Attribute Ranking

When you boost a specific product attribute value, 20 points are added to the product's organic score, making the overall product score increase. In the same way, if you bury a product attribute value, the product organic score is multiplied by 0.2, making the overall score decrease.

If you boost several product attribute values at the same time, the boosted products are ranked based on the order of boosting, and boosting points are doubled (this is, 20 points for the last boosted, 40 for the second, and 60 for the first in the list). On the other hand, buried attribute values are always multiplied by 0.2, no matter how many attributes you buried. You can change the order of boosted or buried attribute values, and the corresponding points will automatically adjust.

For example, the product "Blue Denim Halter Neck Dress” has an organic product score of 2,500 points. You decide to boost the product attribute Fabric with the value "Denim", which adds 20 points to the product score. The new product score is 2,520, increasing the overall product score and ranking the product higher on the results list. However, if you downgrade the same product attribute value, the product score is multiplied by 0.2, resulting in a product score of 500 points and pushing the product lower on the list.

interact

Attribute Ranking is not the only criteria that influences a product's overall scoring. Learn more about scoring criteria on Product Scoring.