Multisite Search with Craft and Algolia
Challenge
With a large marketing website on Craft CMS and an even larger one on Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Palmer Johnson Power Systems was wrestling with how to deliver a seamless experience to customers searching for parts.
Solution
Using a pair of Algolia indices, one from each site, we ran two searches in parallel. The first returned Craft CMS marketing site content, while the second scanned the parts index for a match – offering a link to the commerce site if found.
Two Different Platforms. One Integrated Experience.
With two large websites – one optimized for marketing, the other for inventory and commerce – Palmer Johnson wanted to craft an integrated search experience. Too many product number keyword searches were coming up empty.
Our improved search feature originally included:
- A custom Craft plugin to import a CSV list of more than 500,000 parts in inventory
- A custom elements table to store the imported product records
- Running both searches in parallel, with conditional CTAs
- Nudging users to enter complete part numbers when applicable, and visit the e-commerce site if found
The above solution was later replaced by a second Algolia parts index, managed by the client. With basic access to the contents of the second index, we were able to replace the CSV import with real-time inventory data.
Over the two-year span prior to the relaunch, users searched for 9,400 different keywords – 82% of which were specific part numbers. Many had results, but none were directly purchasable. With the new search feature, one in four part searches drives customers to a purchasable e-commerce product.
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