Online store search (beta)

Online store search was specially developed by Yandex to let you search catalogs of online stores and marketplaces. The search uses an index based on the YML catalog, and the search results are optimized to display product details.

Online store search allows you to:

• Search for a product by name or description.

• Search for products that are "in stock" and "to order".

• Filter results by price and category.

• Get the main properties of a product and its image in search results.

Creating an online store search

To create a new search for an online store, add the feed site to Yandex Webmaster and confirm your rights to it. Then follow these steps:

1. Prepare your product catalog for search.

   Product catalog: A YML document with the list of product offers and their main properties. The search index is based on the catalog.

2. Create a new search in the web interface.

   On the Search function for online stores page, specify the parameters for the new search: the catalog location and the result page address.

3. Make sure that the search results are displayed correctly.

When the new online store search is ready, you can install it on your site. You can change the search settings if necessary.

Creating and placing the product catalog

The catalog is a list of product offers in YML format. To view requirements for YML documents, go to Yandex Market Help. The catalog must be created and placed so that the search bot can download and index it regularly.

To prepare the catalog:

1. Configure the export of product information from your database to the YML catalog.

2. Validate the catalog using the Yandex Webmaster XML file validator.

3. Make sure that all links to products contained in the YML catalog lead to the site where you want to place your search.

4. Place the catalog on your site so that the search bot can download and index it. The catalog will be indexed once a day.

When preparing the YML catalog, keep in mind the following specifics of the online store search:

• Only one image per each product offer can be displayed in the search results. If the offer contains multiple images, one of them is chosen randomly.

• If several product offers link to the same page, only one of them will be displayed in the search results randomly.

Creating a new search

To create a new search:

1. Go to the Search function for online stores page.

2. Specify the address of the page where the search results form will be displayed. This page can only be placed on a verified site.

   Note

   Sometimes, forms for different searches may conflict with each other. If you already have a site search, specify a different search result page than before.

3. Specify the location of the product catalog for the search. The catalog must be located on the same site as the results page.

4. Save the new search. The new search will be saved under the name "Catalog search http://URL", where http://URL is the address of your catalog.

The search will only work after the YML catalog is successfully uploaded and indexed. The catalog processing status is available on the search creation page after you click save.

You will also see the number of indexed product offers. If some product offers can't be indexed, they are excluded from the search and the catalog status will display a warning.

Validating search results

Before placing a new search on your site, you can check how its results are displayed. To do this, open the My search boxes page, select a search from the list, and go to the Test your search section.

Search works correctly if:

1. The search results contain the following information for each offer:

   • Name.

   • Price.

   • Category.

   • Brief description.

   • Link to the product page.

   • Image.

   • The first four properties (in their order in the YML catalog).

2. You can filter search results:

   • By category.

   • By availability.

   • By the price range.

3. You can sort search results by price.

If the search or form doesn't work as you expected, double check your settings from the previous steps. If the error persists, write to us, specifying your username and name of the faulty search.

Editing an online store search

You can change the addresses for the results page and YML search catalog on the My search boxes page. To do this, select a search from the list and go to Catalog search. In this section, you can view the current addresses and change them.

The section also displays the search status details:

• YML catalog processing status.

• Date and time when the catalog was last indexed.

• Number of indexed product offers.

• Error codes.

Adding an online store search to your site

To add a search to your site, install your search form and search results form on it. To do this, copy the form code and paste it into the HTML code of your site page:

1. Select a search from the list on the My search boxes page.

2. Go to Code to embed on site.

3. Select the encoding and language of your site.

   Yandex automatically detects the site encoding, but if automatic detection fails, you can specify your text encoding manually.

4. Copy the code of the forms and place them as follows:

   • Place the search form on any page of your site.

   • Place the results form on the page you specified when creating the search. Place a copy of the search form on the same page.

   Note

   Your search will not work if there is no search form on the results page.

Getting search results in JSON format

Besides the search form requests, online store search also supports requests via Yandex Site Search API. The response to this request is returned in JSON format.

You can use the API to create applications for sending search queries and displaying results in any format. Read more about the API access and requests in the API description.