What is Live Search?

Last update: Tue May 13 2025 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Topics:
Services
Search

CREATED FOR:

Admin

Live Search is a feature that replaces the standard search capabilities in Adobe Commerce. The Live Search feature is installed with Composer and connects your Commerce store to the Commerce Services Connector. When it is configured, the default search text field is replaced with the Live Search text field. Live Search also installs the Product Listing Page (PLP) widget, which provides robust filtering capabilities when browsing search results.

With Live Search, you can:

Create meaningful search experiences to help shoppers and buyers find what they want with as little effort as possible.
Take advantage of AI-powered dynamic faceting and re-ranking of search results in response to in-session shopper behaviors.
Use a lightweight SaaS-based service that offers easy updates and is included in your license, reducing the total cost of ownership.
Get technical by enabling GraphQL API, headless flexibility, API sandbox environments, and ultra fast SaaS.

IMPORTANT

When it comes to site search, Adobe Commerce gives you options. Before implementation, review the Boundaries and Limits information to ensure that Live Search is a fit for your business needs.

Architecture

The Adobe Commerce side of the architecture includes hosting the search Admin, synchronizing catalog data, and running the query service. After Live Search is installed and configured, Adobe Commerce begins sharing search and catalog data with SaaS services. At this point, Admin users can set up, customize, and manage search facets, synonyms, and merchandising rules.

Live Search Data Flow

Quick Tour

With a focus on speed, relevance, and ease of use, Live Search is a game changer for shoppers and merchants alike. Watch the following video, then take a quick tour of Live Search from the storefront.

video poster

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/3418797?learn=on

For a more in-depth video about using and configuring Live Search, see the Full Demonstration on Live Search topic.

Search as you type

Live Search responds with suggested products and a thumbnail image of top search results in a popover as shoppers type queries into the Search box. The product detail page displays when shoppers click a suggested or featured product. A View all link in the footer of the popover displays the search results page.

Live Search returns “search as you type” results for a query of two or more characters. For a partial match, the maximum number of characters per word is 20. The number of characters in the query is not configurable. The popover includes thename, sku, and category_ids fields.

Example storefront - search as you type

View all search results

To list all products returned by the “search as you type” query, click View all in the footer of the popover.

Example storefront - price facets

How Live Search handles typos

When a search is made, Live Search runs a non-fuzzy search which does not account for any typos. If no results are found, Live Search performs a second fuzzy search, which takes into account minor typos. The fuzzy search is run with a maximum edit distance of 1. This edit distance uses the concept of Levenshtein distance, and it allows for three types of operations:

Operation

Description

Example

Insertion

Adding a character.

“cat” -> “cart”

Deletion

Removing a character.

“cart” -> “cat”

Substitution

Replacing one character with another.

“cart” -> “cast”

In addition to the fuzzy search logic, transpositions are also accounted for, that is, where two adjacent characters in a word are swapped, for example “teh” instead of “the”. Note that these edit limits are per word and not the phrase as a whole.

Filtered search uses multiple dimensions of attribute values, or facets, as search criteria. The selection of filters is defined by the merchant and changes according to the products returned, with the most commonly used facets pinned to the top of the list.

Use facets as URL parameters:http://yourwebsite.com?color=red, and Live Search filters results based on these attribute values.

Synonyms

Synonyms expand the reach and sharpen the focus of queries by including words shoppers might use that differ from those in the catalog. You can fine tune the synonym dictionary to keep shoppers engaged and on the path to purchase.

Merchandising rules

Merchandising rules shape the shopping experience with if-then statements that add logic and events to search. You can easily boost or bury products for a promotion, season, or other period of time.

Search terms support

Live Search supports Commerce search term redirects. For example, users can search for a term such as “Shipping Rates” and be taken directly to the shipping rates page.

Live Search components

Live Search popover widget is the box that opens under the search field that contains the search results.
Product Listing Page widget (PLP) provides a searchable product listing page with facets and synonym support. The widget is installed and enabled in Live Search 4.0.0+ and replaces the Search Adapter.
(Deprecated) Search Adapter was the precursor to the PLP widget and was installed with Live Search < 4.0.0. If you are using a version of Live Search earlier than 4.0.0, Commerce recommends you upgrade to receive the benefits of the PLP widget features and future improvements. Going forward, the Search Adapter will only be updated to address security issues.

Live Search workspace

The Live Search workspace is the area in the Admin where you configure Live Search features such as synonyms, facets, and Category Merchandising.

Events

Live Search uses events to calculate Intelligent Merchandising and performance dashboards. Eventing is provided with default implementations. Eventing for headless storefronts should be manually enabled.

Catalog data retention policy

If you do not submit a search query for the catalog data in your testing environment for 90 consecutive days, the catalog data is set to hibernation mode and no data is returned for any search query. Catalog data in your production environment is not affected by this policy.

To re-activate the catalog data in your testing environment, submit a support request with the title: “Reactivate Live Search” and include the environment IDs. The catalog data in your testing environment should be restored within couple of hours.

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