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Hello,
I recently purchased Aljax Seach Pro for my website and I am having a very difficult time making the search results appear in the order I want. I have reviewed other articles and have spent hours trialing things given the settings but the search results are still appearing jumbled and sometimes totally unrelated and sometimes even in weird HTML code.
Specifically, I use Backpack Traveler Theme and I want the destination items and tag results to be the primary results (i.e. when someone searches “Germany”, my “Berlin” and “Munich” items pop up first). That is the most important thing. I would also like blog posts, podcast episodes and maybe pages relating to the search secondary to that but above all, I need the destination items/categories to be at the top. I’ve tried ordering and weighing these in many different ways and it still doesn’t appear to work.
Another example is when I search “New Zealand”, the first result is an old blog post on Mardi Gras (it may have just the words New Zealand somewhere in the post which I wouldn’t want to show up for search results so maybe somehow reducing the search to tags only instead of all content?).
Any support in doing this would be greatly appreciated! I’m sure it’s a quick fix and that I’m just missing something or doing something wrong! I’ve attached a screen shot of what searching for “Germany” brings up. The first is a podcast episode on Oktoberfest and the second in something totally random (I believe it’s a brewery tour with one German brewery stop in it) in HTML code and THEN finally Munich. Thanks so much for your time with my questions!
Hi,
Thank you for the detailed description, it helps me a lot.
From your text, I assume you want to display the taxonomy term results first (categories, tags etc..), and then the post type results. I logged in to check the configuration, currently it seems okay to me. The ordering settings look all right as well, taxonomy terms will be shown first: https://i.imgur.com/W1pn5Dr.png
Searching New zealand and Germany also seems to be all right at the moment.Have been able to resolve the issues?
Best,
Ernest Marcinko
If you like my products, don't forget to rate them on codecanyon :)
Hi Ernest!
Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, that’s what I thought. I thought it was all about the ordering of it but yet the search results are still coming up the same. I even tried on a different web browser and clearing the cache and what not. When I search “Germany”, one of my podcast episodes still comes up first followed by the random day trip in HTML and then finally the destination items. Same with New Zealand. When I search for that, I first see an old blog post on Mardi Gras. There are no tags for New Zealand in there just a technical reference to it in wording. Not sure what I’m missing here! And those are the only 2 I checked. It’s probably returning weird results on other search words as well. Thanks so much for taking the time to look into it for me! Much appreciated.
Also, I will make one add on here. I tried doing the “index search” to see if that helped and it didn’t. I’m still getting the same results and I realized that somehow maybe it’s trying to organize by date published in some cases? Maybe? Like for example, that podcast episode on Germany was published after the destination items. Not sure f that might have something to do with it or not. That doesn’t explain the old Mardi Gras post, however so I don’t know. Just thinking out loud! Thanks again!
I am only seeing two items when searching for germany, please check my previous screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/fHKcpoK.png
Are you reffering by any chance to the search results page? For that, make sure that the search results page override is enabled. Otherwise the default search results might be displayed.
Best,
Ernest Marcinko
If you like my products, don't forget to rate them on codecanyon :)
OK that seemed to have at least done something. I am referring to the results page which changed once I hit that override button. But now I am only seeing a basic name multiple times (such as “New Zealand” listed several times in a row without any indication as to what it is before clicking on it) instead of the specific destinations within that country and their images life before. Also, I did want to include info from blog posts and podcast posts but after the main destination items and now those aren’t appearing at all. Again, thanks so much for your help with all of this! I’m learning! 🙂
Make sure to select the correct post types you want to see on the results list under the General Options -> Sources panel. If you are using the index table engine, then those post types need to be selected and indexed as well.
The reason you are seeing those items multiple times, because one is from a category and the other one is from a tag. Those are taxonomy term results (archive page links), which are different from default post type results. Themes, and WordPress search in general does not support displaying taxonomy terms as results – that is the reason of the missing information. The plugin “tricks” the internal wordpress search to think those are post types, and changes the links before clicking. However, images, descriptions and other information cannot be changed, so themes cannot display them (as they are non-existent in the first place).
Best,
If you don’t want them in the results list, you can turn them off under the General Options -> Sources 2 panel.
Ernest Marcinko
If you like my products, don't forget to rate them on codecanyon :)
I see. But now, all of a sudden without having touched anything, when I go to search, I’m only getting basically all tags totally unrelated. For example, I search Germany of New Zealand now and I’m getting a list like “2014 FIFA World Cup”, “Alberta”, “Amazon Rainforests” etc. I don’t know what happened! Thank you!
OK I reset the search to my original and now everything is all jumbled again. It still appears I’m getting blog posts before destination items and HTML code popping up in random places. It seems like there are so many places to edit the ordering of how results appear yet not one (or all) of them change the sequence of the real results. So sorry for all the trouble and thanks so much for the support again!
You cannot access this content. Best,
Ernest Marcinko
If you like my products, don't forget to rate them on codecanyon :)
OK no problem. I will bring up the coding and weird ordering problem in a new thread. Thank you! Happy New Year!
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