May 04, 2021

Tom Humbarger

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4 min. read

We are excited to announce that the SearchStax Site Search Spring 2021 product release is now available.

The features in this release include:

  • Drupal 8 and 9 Support – released a new Drupal Module to accelerate implementation for Drupal customers
  • Sitecore 9.x Support – added support for Sitecore 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2 to the Sitecore Module
  • Two-Factor Authentication – improved security by giving users the option to add two-factor authentication to their Site Search login account
  • Ranking Boost Based on Formula – added new option to use formulas or functions to boost field relevance 
  • Simplified Management of Synonyms and Auto-suggest – simplified ability to add new words for Synonyms and Auto-suggest 
  • Search UI App – added Auto-suggest Widget and a pre-build Search UI App option to the existing options to deliver quicker value 

Editor’s Note: Site Search is now SearchStax Site Search. It is the same great product that empowers marketers and developers with website search that is easy.

We use internal code names when we are developing products and each of our product releases is named after a National Park. This release was referred to as Yosemite for our development team so we are showcasing Vernal Falls in Yosemite National Park as the featured image for this post.

Drupal 8 and 9 Support

We released our first Drupal Module that integrates Site Search with any Drupal 8 or 9 environment. The module lets users set up and configure site search on Drupal in less than 60 minutes.

Learn more about the Drupal Module in our recent blog post.

Sitecore 9.x Support 

In January 2021, we announced the first version of our Sitecore Module that accelerates implementation of Site Search in Sitecore XM, and XP offerings and lets users easily integrate Site Search into Sitecore.

Our latest enhancement to the Sitecore module expands support to Sitecore 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2 in addition to Sitecore 9.3, 10.0 and 10.1 versions announced earlier this year.

Learn more about the Sitecore Module in our blog post and check out the SearchStax Documentation for the latest instructions and links to the installation packages.

Two-Factor Authentication

In order to improve the security options available for our users, SearchStax recently added Two-Factor Authentication. Two-Factor Authentication or 2FA is a popular security protocol which provides added security for any application and makes it more secure by adding an extra layer of protection to the account.

Learn more about Two-Factor Authentication and how to set it up with your SearchStax applications in our 2FA blog post.

Ranking Boost Based on Formula

Site Search uses Ranking to boost the importance of specific results. In our Spring release, we added an option to rank using a Function in addition to fields. 

The key use case will let users control the boosting of a date field based on how recently the page was published so more recent pages are given a bigger score and appear higher in the search results. Other uses for function ranking include the ability to boost fields based on price or popularity. 

Simplified Management of Synonyms and Auto-suggest

We added new search relevance features to simplify adding new words to Synonyms and Auto-suggest. Users can review their analytics to see what users are searching for and quickly add new individual words or suggestions to improve the search experience as needed.

You can still upload a file to do a bulk upload to modify the words used for Synonyms and Auto-suggest.

Search UI App

We added two new features to the Search UI App that will expedite Site Search implementations and deliver quicker value with out-of-the-box search widgets.

The Auto-suggest Search Widget is a super lightweight and performant widget that can be added to the header of a website for easy access to search functionality. The Widget is not dependent on any libraries and takes up minimal resources. 

The Auto-suggest Search Widget includes auto-suggest functionality to guide users to the information they are looking for. When a search is initiated, the Widget redirects to the website’s search page to display the search results.

The Search UI App is a pre-configured page that helps you visualize how your search results will appear without having to make any upfront changes to your website. You can also provide a link to the page to other team members as a way to demonstrate the new search functionality before you add the new search page to your website.

The Search UI App functionality and URL is accessible from Apps Management in Site Search. To see the Search UI App in action, check out the SearchStax Search UI App and enter a search for “site search”. Except for some minor CSS formatting, the Search UI App is identical to the SearchStax Search page

SearchStax Site Search breaks new ground by giving marketing teams the power to manage, analyze and enhance site search relevancy on their websites while reducing IT bottlenecks and delivering quick time-to-value. 

Contact us today for a quick discussion and demonstration to see how Site Search can help improve your search experience.

By Tom Humbarger

Senior Marketing Programs Manager

“…search should not only be for those organizations with massive search budgets...”

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