Search pages

Visitors use site search pages to search for content on your site. You can include filters, sorts, and other standard features in your site-search pages, and even have different search pages for different sites.

Site search pages are also where you can turn on search spotlights, which automatically highlight assets of your choosing according to terms and dictionaries that you configure. For information, see Dictionaries, terms, and spotlights.

For a wire frame example of what this content type can look like on your site, see Site search page design.

Standard search page fields

While different search pages serve different purposes, they often contain the same configuration fields. See the table below for information on these fields.

Main

Field	Description
Title	Enter a title. The title is visible to the visitors to your site.
Description	Enter a description that describes this asset. This description is visible to the visitors to your site.
Results Per Page	Enter the desired number of search results per page. Previous and next buttons are available to page through the results.
Types	Select the content types that Brightspot will return when search queries are made.
User Displayed Filters	Select the types of search filters available for visitors on your site, such as date published or content type. Visitors see checkboxes next to each filter in your site search. For details, see Setting the user displayed filters for site search.
Sorting	Select the fields by which visitors can sort the search results. If you specify sorting, Brightspot does not apply boosts.
Filtering Rules	Select the rules by which Brightspot filters the search results. These filtering rules are not visible to visitors to your site.
Boost Configuration	Set the criteria and matching weights for ensuring certain assets appear toward the top of the search results. Select Standard or Custom. - Standard is the pre-defined set of boosts that are applied to your site search page. - Custom lists the standard boosts and allows you to modify them. See Relevance and boosting for more information.
Stop Words	Enter a list of words that do not count toward search results.

SEO

Field	Description
Title	Text appearing in the asset's <title> tag. Brightspot automatically populates this field from data on the Main tab, and you can override this as needed by entering a new title.
Suppress SEO Display Name	If toggled on, your site's name will not appear in the <title> tag and subsequently in search results.
Description	Text appearing in the asset's <meta name="description"> tag. Brightspot automatically populates this field from data on the Main tab, and you can override this as needed by entering a new description.
Robots	Text appearing in the item's <meta name="robots"> tag. For an explanation of the available options, see Robots Meta Directives.
AMP Disabled	Toggle on to disable generation of an AMP version of this asset. For details, see AMP.

Site search page

To create a site search:

1. In the header, click .
2. From the Create list, select Site Search Page.
3. Using the following table as a reference, fill out the fields to create a site search page.
4. Complete your site’s workflow and publish the site search.

Main

Site search pages have all standard search page fields on the Main tab.

SEO

Site search pages have all standard search page fields on the SEO tab.

Advanced

Field	Description
Allow Non Permalinked	Toggle on to allow assets without a permalink to appear in the results of a site search page.
Locales	Select All Locales, Current Locale, or Some Locales to determine the locale in which the module is displayed. This serves as an exclusion filter to prevent items in different locales from inappropriately populating the module.

Spotlights

Field	Description
Dictionary	Choose an existing dictionary to be used in grouping search results together. This setting helps prevent terms in one locale from triggering a search result in another locale. For additional information, see Dictionaries, terms, and spotlights.
Max Spotlights	Enter the numeric value for the maximum number of spotlights permitted on a site search page (e.g., 10). There is no limit to this value. For additional information, see Dictionaries, terms, and spotlights.

Styles

Field	Description
Template	Select the template of this module from the list of options. Templates are visual presentation presets that differ depending on the type of module.
Preset	Select one of the following: None—Applies styling from the site's theme. Custom—Opens a form to customize the site's theme for this asset. (Various)—Aside from None or Custom, there may be additional options in this list depending on the value selected in the Template field. If the selected template has presets, then those presets are able to be selected in this list and applied. For information about configuring template presets, see Creating a template preset.
Search Form Background Color	Configure the background color behind the main search field and search filters.
Search Results Layout	Select whether you want the search results to display as a list or grid.

Asset search pages

You can configure an asset search page that is tailored for returning certain digital assets, like attachment files, documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. The asset search page is separate from the standard Brightspot search, and includes fields that are specific to searching for digital assets.

To create an asset search page:

1. In the header, click .
2. From the Create list, select Asset Search Page.
3. Using the following table as a reference, complete the fields as needed.
4. Click Save.

Main

Asset search pages have all standard search page fields on the Main tab.

SEO

Asset search pages have all standard search page fields on the SEO tab.

Advanced

Field	Description
Locales	Select All Locales, Current Locale, or Some Locales to determine the locale in which the module is displayed. This serves as an exclusion filter to prevent items in different locales from inappropriately populating the module.

Styles

Download Search Results Page Styles

Field	Description
Template	Select the template of this module from the list of options. Templates are visual presentation presets that differ depending on the type of module.
Preset	Select one of the following: None—Applies styling from the site's theme. Custom—Opens a form to customize the site's theme for this asset. (Various)—Aside from None or Custom, there may be additional options in this list depending on the value selected in the Template field. If the selected template has presets, then those presets are able to be selected in this list and applied. For information about configuring template presets, see Creating a template preset.
Search Form Background Color	Configure the background color behind the main search field and search filters.

Product search pages

You can configure a product search page that is tailored for returning product search results. The product search page is separate from the standard Brightspot search, and includes fields that are specific to searching for products.

To create a product search page:

1. In the header, click .
2. From the Create list, select Product Search Page.
3. Using the following table as a reference, complete the fields as needed.
4. Click Save.

Main

Product search pages have all standard search page fields on the Main tab.

SEO

Product search pages have all standard search page fields on the SEO tab.

Advanced

Field	Description
Allow Non Permalinked	Toggle on to allow assets without a permalink to appear in the results of a site search page.
Locales	Select All Locales, Current Locale, or Some Locales to determine the locale in which the module is displayed. This serves as an exclusion filter to prevent items in different locales from inappropriately populating the module.

Styles

Product Search Results Page Styles

Field	Description
Template	Select the template of this module from the list of options. Templates are visual presentation presets that differ depending on the type of module.
Preset	Select one of the following: - None—Applies styling from the site's theme. - Custom—Opens a form to customize the site's theme for this asset. - (Various)—Aside from None or Custom, there may be additional options in this list depending on the value selected in the Template field. If the selected template has presets, then those presets are able to be selected in this list and applied. For information about configuring template presets, see Creating a template preset.
Search Form Background Color	Configure the background color behind the main search field and search filters.

Relevance and boosting

When a visitor searches your site for content, the number of items returned may be in the thousands. Visitors can sort the results by relevance, which orders the results by best match to the search criteria.

A boost raises the relevance of assets that meet a condition you define, so those assets appear higher in the search results. You configure boosts in the Boost Configuration field of a site search page. Boosts have no effect on the order of results unless the search sorts by relevance. The default sort is Automatic, which sorts by relevance.

note

The boosts described in this section apply to site search pages on your site. The CMS search boost plugin is a separate feature that applies only to searches within the Brightspot CMS.

Standard boosts

When you select Standard in the Boost Configuration field, Brightspot applies the following boosts. Each boost has a weight from zero to 100. The scale is exponential: a weight of zero applies no extra multiplier, 50 multiplies a boost's contribution by roughly 1,000, and 100 by roughly 1,000,000.

Boost	Field	Weight
Exact match	Author names	3
Partial match	Author names	9
Exact match	Title	1
Partial match	Title	10
Partial match	Description	7
Exact match	First name (person)	4
Partial match	First name (person)	4
Exact match	Last name (person)	8
Partial match	Last name (person)	4
Exact match	First name (author)	4
Partial match	First name (author)	4
Exact match	Last name (author)	8
Partial match	Last name (author)	4
Newest	Publish date	1

The author names boosts apply to the names of the authors credited on any asset, so an asset ranks higher when a search matches its byline. The person boosts apply to the first and last name fields of Person assets, and the author boosts apply to the same fields of Author assets.

Each content type decides which of its fields supply the title and description. For example, an article supplies its headline as the title and its subheadline as the description. Writing clear, specific headlines and subheadlines therefore improves the ranking of an asset in site search.

Custom boosts

When you select Custom in the Boost Configuration field, you can add, remove, and adjust boosts. Every boost has a Current Weight setting. The following table lists each boost type, what it boosts, and the additional settings it requires.

Boost type	What it boosts	Required settings	Needs a search phrase
Exact Match	Assets whose selected text field exactly matches the full search phrase.	Index (a text field)	Yes
Partial Match	Assets whose selected text field contains one or more of the search words.	Index (a text field)	Yes
Starts With Match	Assets whose selected text field begins with the search phrase or with one of its words.	Index (a text field)	Yes
Semantic Match	Assets of a selected content type when a search word sounds like the content type's name or one of the keywords you specify. The match is phonetic, so a misspelled search word can still trigger the boost.	Content Type and Keywords	Yes
Content Type	All assets of a selected content type, including its subtypes.	Content Type	No
Newest	Assets with more recent dates in a selected date field.	Index (a date field)	No
Oldest	Assets with older dates in a selected date field.	Index (a date field)	No
Section	Assets in a selected section or in any of its descendant sections.	Section	No
Tag	Assets associated with a selected tag or any of its descendant tags.	Tag	No

tip

Because the weight scale is exponential, change weights in small steps and review the results after each change. Compare your weights with the Standard boosts, which range from one to 10.

Creating a stop-word list

Stop words are common words that you want to exclude from searches. For example, suppose you enter the following search phrase:

Dog trainers who are really smart and who are close to me

The words who, and, are, to, and me are extremely common and do not help to distinguish one search result from another. When performing a search, Brightspot can remove those words from the phrase and then search for the following:

Dog trainers really smart close

Removing stop words also improves relevance. An item with a lot of stop words, such as and and or, may seem very relevant compared to another item that uses less of such words—even though the actual content may be less relevant.

To create or modify a stop-words list:

1. Search for and open your site’s site search.
2. From the Stop Words selection field, select Create New. A New Stop Words widget appears.
3. In the Name field, type a name for the stop-words list.
4. Under Stop Words, add new stop words, or click to remove existing ones.
5. Click Save.

Excluding assets from site search

This topic covers how to exclude an asset from site searches in Brightspot.

To exclude an asset from site searches:

1. Search for and open the item on the content edit page.
2. Toward the right of the widget, select > Overrides. The Overrides widget appears.
3. Under Advanced, turn on Exclude From Search Results.
4. Complete your site's workflow and publish the item.

Setting user displayed filters

When setting up your site search page, you can specify which filters are visible to your visitors by configuring the User Displayed Filters field. This can be useful in cases where you want to make sure visitors to your site are searching for information relevant to them. Visitors may not need to search for tags, but do need to be able to search for sections. By using this field, you can specify which filters are available on site search and which are not.

To set the user displayed filters:

1. Complete the steps outlined in Site search page.

2. Click Add in the User Displayed Filters field, and select the type of filters you would like to make available to visitors of this site search page.

3. For each filter selected, do the following:

   1. The Heading of the selected type defaults to the type name. You can override this with your own text if needed.

   2. Expand the Include <selected type> field and make a selection from the following choices:

      note

      The name of this field varies based on the type of filter you select. For example, if you select to include sections as a User Displayed Filter, this field will be named Include Sections.

      • All—Includes all available items in the User Displayed Filters on the site search page.
      • All, Except—Includes all available items in the User Displayed Filters on the site search page, except the ones you select. Click Add Item to select the items to exclude.
      • Some—Allows you to specify which items to include in the User Displayed Filters on the site search page. Click Add Item to select the items to include.

   3. To select one or more of the filters by default for your visitors:

      1. Click Add Item in the Default Values field.
      2. Add all of the items to be selected by default for your visitors on the site search page.
   note

   In the image above, you see sections were selected as a User Displayed Filter. The Heading was changed to Top Sections, from the default Sections. Two of the available sections have been included (BSP_Culture and BSP_Benefits), with BSP_Benefits being selected in the Default Values field (so it is checked by default on the site search page). Looking at the preview to the right of the field form, you see both Benefits and Culture listed under Top Sections and Benefits is selected by default.

4. Complete your site's workflow and publish the asset.