Managing Search Results

Swiftype provides powerful tools for fine-tuning search results to ensure users find the most relevant content quickly. This guide covers ranking adjustments, aliases, and synonyms.

Result Ranking

Custom result ranking allows you to control which pages appear first for specific search terms, ensuring high-value content gets priority visibility.

How to Rank Results

1. Access Swiftype Admin UI → Result Rankings
2. Enter the search term or URL
3. View current rankings for that term
4. Drag results up or down to reorder
5. Remove irrelevant results by clicking the X icon
6. Changes take effect immediately

Ranking Strategy

Prioritize results based on:

• User intent - What are they trying to accomplish?
• Content freshness - Is this the latest information?
• Comprehensiveness - Does it fully answer the question?
• User journey stage - New user vs. experienced user content

Aliases

Aliases function like targeted synonyms but only apply to specific result sets. They're perfect for handling product-specific terminology or abbreviations.

Adding Aliases

1. Navigate to Results Rankings
2. Enter the primary search term
3. Add alias terms in the text input field
4. Press Enter to save

Alias Use Cases

# Product abbreviations
Primary: "Application Performance Monitoring"
Aliases: ["APM", "app monitoring", "application monitoring"]

# Feature nicknames
Primary: "New Relic Query Language"
Aliases: ["NRQL", "query language", "NR query"]

# Common misspellings
Primary: "Infrastructure"
Aliases: ["infrastrcture", "infra", "infrstructure"]

Synonyms

Synonyms ensure that different terms with the same meaning return identical results. Unlike aliases, synonyms work bidirectionally and globally across all searches.

Adding Synonyms

1. Go to Synonyms in Admin UI
2. Add synonym terms in text input
3. Hit Enter to save
4. Terms are now treated as equivalent

Effective Synonym Examples

# Technical equivalents
"RBAC" ⟷ "role based access control" ⟷ "roles based access controls"

# Product terminology
"servers" ⟷ "new relic infrastructure" ⟷ "infrastructure monitoring"

# Common alternatives
"logs" ⟷ "logging" ⟷ "log management"
"alerts" ⟷ "alerting" ⟷ "notifications"

Result Optimization Workflow

1. Identify Problem Searches

Monitor search analytics to find:

• High-volume searches with low click-through rates
• Searches with no results
• Common search refinements

2. Analyze Search Intent

For each problematic search:

• What is the user trying to find?
• What content best answers their need?
• Are there multiple valid interpretations?

3. Apply Appropriate Tool

4. Test and Monitor

After making changes:

• Test the actual search experience
• Monitor click-through rates
• Gather user feedback
• Iterate based on data

Advanced Techniques

Combining Tools

Use multiple tools together for complex scenarios:

1. Synonyms for base equivalence
2. Result ranking for priority ordering
3. Aliases for edge cases

Seasonal Adjustments

Some searches may need temporal adjustments:

• Promote latest release notes after launches
• Boost troubleshooting guides during incidents
• Highlight tutorials during onboarding seasons

TBD Enhancements