Search Term Highlighting, New Synonym Dashboard introduced in ElasticPress 3.5
Vasken Hauri on
ElasticPress 3.5 delivers two new features that uplevel onsite search capabilities and improve user experience: a synonym dashboard and search term result highlighting.
This release follows several smaller updates that introduced a sticky post filter that displays specified posts atop search results, improved support for searching terms (like tags), a related posts block for the WordPress block editor, and a widget for filtering WooCommerce results by price.
Synonym Support
A brand new synonym dashboard makes it easy to associate interchangeable search keywords or phrases — like sweatshirt and hoodie. Site managers can quickly create, edit, and delete two types of synonym groupings:
- Sets of equivalent terms — useful when all terms are considered equivalent, such as rebranded product names or regional variations like sneakers, trainers, and runners.
- Groups of alternative terms — terms that will also be matched when you search for the primary, typically less specific term. For instance, a search for “shoes” can also include sneakers and sandals — even as searching for “sandals” would not include all shoes.
Combined with misspelling management, this feature is especially helpful for WooCommerce (and other e-commerce) sites in that it helps shoppers find more complete and relevant results.
Search Term Highlighting
With ElasticPress 3.5, search terms are automatically highlighted in search results. Search term highlighting helps visitors see exactly where, in a document, search results match the search query by underlining keywords within content. A new CSS class applied to highlighted keywords enables customization of the visual appearance to match a site’s design.
Learn More About ElasticPress
Learn more about the new feature enhancements included in ElasticPress 3.5 in our official announcement post and check out ElasticPress.io, our end-to-end, intelligent search solution for WordPress. We offer a variety of tiers perfect for WooCommerce stores, agencies managing multiple customers, and enterprises.
For the complete list of enhancements and fixes included in this release, view the changelog.
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