{"id":154798,"date":"2021-08-10T15:32:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T13:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/blog\/how-does-spotler-activate-search-actually-work"},"modified":"2026-01-27T17:14:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T16:14:56","slug":"how-does-spotler-activate-search-actually-work","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/blog\/how-does-spotler-activate-search-actually-work","title":{"rendered":"Our secret sauce \u2014 or: how does Spotler Activate Search actually work?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Some years ago, McDonald\u2019s sold the BigMac \u201cSecret Sauce\u201d in bottles for the first time, including a detailed list of its ingredients. Before this, the sauce ingredients and recipe were kept a secret. The sauce is said to be delivered to franchises in sealed containers. Employees in the know about the sauce ingredients are even said to have signed non-disclosure agreements to keep them from revealing the secret ingredient list.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here at Spotler, it doesn\u2019t take an NDA to keep the sharp minds that are behind our search technology from talking.&nbsp;They prefer developing new features and functionalities\u2026 rather than talking about them.<\/p>\n<p>But we\u2019ve been able to hunt down our lead developer, who has revealed some of the main ingredients that make up the&nbsp;<strong>Spotler Activate Search Secret Sauce<\/strong>. Curious? Take a look:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/blog-howitworks-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6690\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>And there you have it, the main ingredients of the <a href=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/activate-search\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"79398\">Spotler Activate Search<\/a> Secret Sauce recipe.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re saying this isn\u2019t 100% clear to you? Don\u2019t worry, we have you covered! Let\u2019s take a close look at the ingredients, at how the <a href=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/activate-search\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"79398\">Spotler Activate Search<\/a> search engine works. How does it ensure your searchers always find what they\u2019re looking for on your website within milliseconds? And that the most relevant results appear at the top of the results list?<\/p>\n<div style=\"height:41px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The main ingredient: Spotler Activate Search Standard Rank<\/h2>\n<p>Spotler Activate Search\u2019s standard relevance is based on several different ingredients. The total of these ingredients forms the Spotler Activate Search Standard Rank. This is a score that is purely based on the content within your document, in particular:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Number of terms in the document<\/li>\n<li>The frequency of terms in the document<\/li>\n<li>The infrequency of terms in other documents<\/li>\n<li>Query field boosts<\/li>\n<li>Length of the document<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Spotler Activate Search Standard Rank can be a number running from 0 to X, and it\u2019s influenced by your content, settings, and optimisations. Content is the most important influence factor to relevance. If a document is not relevant to the query, it might not end up near the top of the results list, despite it having been boosted.<\/p>\n<div style=\"height:41px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Optimisation Ingredients<\/h2>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-ca43688ea3d4b525133c640d6aba0f6d\">1. Search fields<\/h4>\n<p>Within your conversion cockpit you can assign boost factors to your search fields. With these factors you\u2019re letting the system know which fields have relatively higher importance than other fields. Let\u2019s look at an example. We\u2019re seeing 3 documents below for which you have the title boosted with a factor of 1.0 and the description field with a factor of 0.5. You\u2019re telling Spotler Activate Search that your title fields are more important than your description fields when it comes to matching your documents to the search query.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/blog-howitworks-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6692\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>If your user now types in the query \u201cshoes\u201d, he\/she will get the following results:<\/p>\n<ol start=\"1\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Document 2 (1.0 + 0.5 = 1.5)<\/li>\n<li>Document 1 (1.0)<\/li>\n<li>Document 3 (0.5)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div style=\"height:14px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a9712994d16ea7154056dec8b0ab51a5\">2. Ranking Rules<\/h4>\n<p>With Ranking Rules, you can add additional scores to the Spotler Activate Search Standard Rank of documents, letting the search engine know which products you really want to see on top of the result lists (e.g. because they are your housebrand or your high-margin products).<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important to stress though that these are only additional scores, meaning that your document content is still king. If a document\u2019s content is not relevant to a query, a Ranking Rule will not overwrite that, and the other way around: if one of your documents is very relevant to a query, it still shows up in the results, even though you have demoted it with a Ranking Rule. It will simply show further down in the results list.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"height:14px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b500459cc477246050fc249b79679402\">3. Clickrank<\/h4>\n<p>Spotler Activate Search\u2019s search result re-ranker powered by machine learning works very similar to a Ranking Rule: It adds scores to the Spotler Activate Search Standard Rank based on number of clicks. The algorithm learns which products are clicked on most for each query and adds respective scores. As you can see, relevance is still king when you have clickrank enabled (as scores are simply added).<\/p>\n<p>However, we\u2019re taking things to the next level here, as besides turning on clickrank, you don\u2019t have to do anything, and you\u2019re even able to cater to seasonalities. Let\u2019s take a look again at an example: Different kinds of leather jackets could have the same document relevance for the search term \u201cleather jackets\u201d in your Spotler Activate Search account. With the help of Clickrank though, you\u2019ll automatically be showing summer leather jackets towards the top of the results in the summer and warmer jackets in the winter, as people tend to click on those items more during those seasons.<\/p>\n<div style=\"height:14px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3f6fa95676a6a3612f9ba8a5dd738535\">4. Push Words<\/h4>\n<p>Push words will boost the document they are connected to with a factor 10, and an item will end up on top of the result list when the push word is used as a query. Multiple push words can be added to an item. Push words can also be added to multiple items. In that case, regular ranking will decide what item will be shown first.<\/p>\n<p>A document has to have some sort of relevance before it can be boosted. When a visitor is searching for \u201cdog\u201d, but \u201cdog\u201d is not in the document, a boost will have no effect.<\/p>\n<p>This is what push words look like in our sauce code:<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/blog-howitworks-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6694\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"height:14px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c3547b08205e0d9430b3eb2091f98c15\">5. Field Boosting<\/h4>\n<p>Under \u2018sorting\u2019 in your conversion cockpit you\u2019ll find the option for \u201cField boosting\u201d. This allows you to use a value from an attribute in a document as a boost. Field boosting is relative to the Standard Spotler Activate Search Rank.<\/p>\n<div style=\"height:41px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">More ingredients?<\/h2>\n<p>Not everyone loves the BigMac sauce. But it\u2019s not like you could walk up to McDonald\u2019s and request new ingredients. And that\u2019s the big difference between us here at Spotler Activate Search and McDonald\u2019s (besides a few other, small ones maybe)!<\/p>\n<p>We are committed to constantly improve our Spotler Activate Search Sauce, to offer you and your customers the most optimised on-site search experience.<\/p>\n<p>Are there any ingredients that you\u2019re currently missing? Please let us know! Our chefs, I mean search technology experts, thrive to improve our <a href=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/activate-search\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"79398\">Spotler Activate Search<\/a> search engine every day.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group mobile-fw has-light-blue-background-color has-background\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:60%\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-titel\">Book a personal demo<\/h3>\n<p>Curious about what search optimisation and our <a href=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/ecommerce\/onsite-search-merchandising\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"181005\">software<\/a> can add to your business? Book a demo and get inspired!<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/demo\">Book a demo<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:40%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full no-bot-margin hide-mobile\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"515\" height=\"372\" src=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cta-demo-21.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-68004\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spotler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cta-demo-21.webp 515w, https:\/\/spotler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cta-demo-21-300x217.webp 300w, https:\/\/spotler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cta-demo-21-263x190.webp 263w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this blog, we take a close look at the ingredients, at how the Spotler Activate Search search engine actually works. Discover more about our recipe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":156748,"template":"","cat_industry":[1462,1463],"cat_topic":[1233,1681],"class_list":["post-154798","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cat_industry-b2c-en-gb","cat_industry-ecommerce-retail-en-gb","cat_topic-cdp-en-gb","cat_topic-personalisation-en-gb"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/154798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/154798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229493,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/154798\/revisions\/229493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cat_industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cat_industry?post=154798"},{"taxonomy":"cat_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spotler.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cat_topic?post=154798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}