Smart search: typos, synonyms and complex queries
Search that understands typos, synonyms and phrases like “black dresses size M under €100” — and turns them into filters.
Why it matters
Shoppers don't type the way your catalog is written. On a phone, thumbs miss keys and "dress" becomes "dres" or "dresss". One person searches for a "hoodie", another for a "sweatshirt", a third for a "hooded top". Some type the whole brief at once: "black dresses size M under €100". A basic search answers all of this with a blank "nothing found" page — and a shopper who arrived ready to buy simply leaves.
Fashion CMS smart search reads a query the way a good sales assistant would: it fixes mistakes, knows synonyms and slang, breaks a phrase down into parameters and never leaves anyone staring at an empty page. It works hand in hand with live search: suggestions as you type follow the same rules.
How it drives sales
- Fewer zero-result searches. Typos, extra letters and different names for the same item no longer lose shoppers halfway.
- A complex query becomes a ready-made edit. The phrase is turned into filters for category, color, size and price — shoppers see only what fits and can remove any parameter in one click.
- Similar items instead of a dead end. When there's no exact match, search shows the closest styles, so there's always a reason to keep browsing.
- Search speaks your audience's language. Slang, collection and style names, words borrowed from other languages — whatever your customers use leads to the right products.
- Data for better decisions. Queries with no results tell you which synonyms to add and what's missing from your range.
How it works
- A shopper types a query on the desktop site or on mobile.
- Search fixes typos and missing or extra letters, and shows what it understood: "Did you mean: dress".
- Words are reduced to their base form: "dresses" and "dress", "jeans" and "jean" find the same products.
- Synonyms from the dictionary widen the query: "hoodie" also finds sweatshirts and hooded tops.
- Any color, size, price or category in the query becomes a filter chip, and results open with those filters already applied.
- If nothing matches, similar styles from the same part of the catalog appear instead of an empty page.
What search understands
| Situation | Query | What it finds |
|---|---|---|
| Typo | dres | dresses |
| Extra letter | dresss | dress |
| Synonym | hoodie | sweatshirts, hooded tops |
| Word forms | black dresses | black dress |
| Complex query | black dresses size M under €100 | category, color, size and price as filters |
| No matches | polka dot dress | similar styles |
For multilingual stores, search also fixes queries typed with the wrong keyboard layout.
For your team
The CMS includes a synonym dictionary: a word, its variants and the rule type — synonym, slang or collection name. Add "kicks → sneakers, trainers", hit Save, and search starts finding the right products right away, with no reindexing and no developer involved. Colors come from your products' color variants, sizes and prices from their variants. Popular complex queries can become SEO landing pages with a ready-made edit and their own URL.