When a Search becomes a Search

By now, you must know what Motive’s architecture is and how radical the concept of Search is to Motive's own existence, but there may still be questions on the specifications of searching, on the very factors that make an input a search.

This article aims to shed light on all these questions, providing you with technical context on the use of search and illustrating it with practical cases.

Why should you Keep Reading This?

You really want to read this article. Really, it won’t help you abstractly, it will actually help you understand the following topics very clearly:

• What users input in the Search Box.
• How that input becomes a Search.
• What your Analytics understand as a Search.

Conversations with the Search Box

So, do we know when a search becomes a search? Searches are queries entered by users, which is a piece of information a user searches for. Searches are the very piece of information a user inputs to get a result. Therefore, the exact notion of when typing becomes searching is vital.

In Motive Commerce Search, all this is defined by the algorithm followed by Motive's Instant Search. Motive's Instant Search is the actor that automatically triggers searches, no user interaction is needed. It is what defines that every time a user starts using the Search Box, a 300 milliseconds timer starts. 

When the time between characters is shorter than 300 milliseconds, the counter is rebooted. This allows for better performance with unnecessary petitions, obtaining more dynamic searches. 

 

Elementary, my Dear Watson

Let's imagine that a shopper is a big fan of Arthur Conan Doyle. While trying to get to his favourite books. Until the moment that user enters the intended term, the following steps happen:

1. The user enters shler by mistake and corrects it quickly.
2. The user enters sherlok holmes by mistake and takes some time to notice.
3. The user enters sherlock holmes, the intended search term.

Therefore, which of these interactions by the user and the Search Box is considered a search, the search that also appears in my Analytics. Considering the previous remarks on the timer:

1. The quick correction is not considered a search, so she won't appear in your analytics.
2. The other two searches (sherlok holmes, sherlock holmes) are recorded as valid searches, as defined by Motive's Instant Search.

Understanding what is a search in details helps to understand how shoppers communicate with a shop, and how to improve the shopping experience by creating Synonyms to predict, for instance, common spelling mistakes.

A Search’s Journey

It’s now clear when does a User Types Things become a Search, but there are more to grasp. Once a search becomes that, it goes through a quick path until it returns instant results to user. The aforementioned 300ms debounce time prevents that too many queries reach the server and reflects it in the URLl

Every search interaction is represented by a Query Session ID, which is reset every time users clear the words entered in the search box. However, this ID does not reset when the user uses pagination, filters or sorting.

We use the information sent by this ID to present Analytics and understand how shoppers interact with the search box, helping you understand your shop better.

Learn More

Here are some other articles that may help you in the quest to master the idea of Search:

• Search: Understand why Search is such a core concept for Motive.
• How does Motive Commerce Search work?: The technical tale of the functioning of Motive Commerce Search.
• Synonyms: A great feature to use once your understand your shoppers' searches.