Synonyms are another feature available to users on paid CloudSearch accounts. You can use it to fine-tune your customers' search experience by specifying queries that your online store should treat equally. For example, if you want the search queries like TV, Television, and TV set treated as equivalent and produce the same search results, place these queries in a single synonym group.
While the most common use for this feature is lexical synonyms such as "sneakers" and "sport shoes," more advanced and creative scenarios are indeed possible. They can be beneficial for the overall site search performance. For example, one can use synonyms to redirect queries returning few or no results at all to some good results. In that sense, one can consider synonyms a more generalized form of the "Promotions" feature.
To improve the site search performance, use statistics provided in the "Search activity" section of the CloudSearch Dashboard to build synonym groups.
Another context where synonyms can enhance site search is multilingual product (or brand) names. You can induce queries with localized brand names to return correct results simply by putting the "correct" and "incorrect" requests in a single synonym group. Also, you can use synonyms to fix incorrect but common misspellings of product titles, brands, or other names in complicated situations where automatic spelling corrections cannot help.
Creating Synonyms Groups
Synonyms can be added and managed via the "Synonyms" tab of the "CloudSearch & CloudFilters Settings" page of your store Admin area (Catalog -> CloudSearch & CloudFilters).
To add a synonym group:
On the "Synonyms" tab of the "CloudSearch & CloudFilters Settings" page of your store Admin area, click the "Add synonyms" button.
In the popup, click inside the text field and specify up to five search queries that should be treated as synonymous. You must enter at least two words or phrases.
To enter multiple search queries, separate the individual requests with commas (,) or press ENTER after each word as you type.Click the "Add synonyms" button in the popup.
A synonym group will be created.
Now, if you try searching these queries in the storefront, the search results will be the same for all the group queries.
Editing Synonyms Groups
If necessary, you can add and remove synonyms to and from existing groups:
To add a new query to a synonyms group:
Click inside the group line and type the word.
Click "Save."
To remove queries from a group:
Click on the "X" icon of the word you want to remove.
Click "Save."
Deleting Synonyms Groups
If necessary, you can delete a synonyms group as a whole. For this purpose:
Click on the "Trash" icon opposite a synonyms group you want to delete.
Confirm the deletion in the popup.
Importing/Exporting Synonyms
The add-on supports the import and export of synonyms in a CSV file.
To import synonyms groups:
Prepare a .csv file with a list of synonyms. Don't forget to place each group of synonyms on a separate line and use commas as a delimiter between the individual synonyms.
On the "Synonyms" tab of the "CloudSearch & CloudFilters Settings" page of your store Admin area, click the Import button.
Click the "Choose file" button to select the file that you want to import.
Use the "Delete all existing synonyms before importing" setting to specify whether CloudSearch should remove any existing synonyms from the system or add the new synonyms to the existing ones.
Click "Upload file."
After the upload has been completed, the file with synonyms will be added to the system, and you will be able to find them in the "Synonyms" section.
To export synonyms, use the link "Export."
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