Predictive search
Predictive search is the results panel that drops down as a shopper types in the header’s search field, in the navigation panel, in the desktop header bar and on the search page, which the search icon opens on phones. It isn’t a section you add to a page, and it isn’t listed in the theme editor: the theme fetches it in the background each time the shopper types.
What you can configure lives in theme settings. See Search for the featured collection, the popular searches menu and recent searches that fill the panel before anything is typed.
What the results show
As the shopper types, the panel lists, in this order:
- Suggestions. Search terms Shopify suggests from what has been typed.
- Products. Up to four, each with its image, title and price.
- Collections, Pages and Articles that match, articles with their featured image.
The part of each suggestion that matches what the shopper typed is shown in bold.
Each group appears only when it has a match. Sold-out products are listed after available ones.
What it searches
Predictive search is provided by Shopify and queries products, collections, pages and articles that are published to the Online Store sales channel. It matches on titles, product types, vendors, tags and variant data.
Results are live: they update as the shopper types, and a shopper who presses Enter goes through to the full Search page, which has filters and sorting that the dropdown panel does not.
Tips
- Improve results in Shopify, not in the theme. What ranks where is Shopify’s, and it responds to product titles, tags and the Search & Discovery app’s synonyms, not to theme settings.
- Fill the empty state. A shopper who opens search and hasn’t typed yet sees nothing unless you set a featured collection or a popular searches menu in Search. Either one turns an empty box into a starting point.
- Unpublished content never appears. If a page or product is missing from results, check that it is published to the Online Store sales channel before anything else.