Search extensions or fixes

Hello,
This has become my least favorite thing about Opencart. I really like opencart but what I see when I look at customer search report, is a lot of possible lost sales because of having to get the built in search to work well enough to give good results.
Let me give an example. I sell stuff that has different bolt / thread sizes. So they can have 3/8 x 10, 5/16 x 14, etc. Those are options and lets say they are product model "A".
If you do a search for 3/8 x 10 since it is an option it doesn't find product A.
If you have 3/8 x 10 in the description and the customer does a search for that with "search in description" chosen it'll find product A. But not everyone does that option.
You can add it in tags or other places in the product. BUT then lets say the people do a search for "3/8x10" or "3/8 - 10" or "3/8" x10" or "3/8 inch x 10" or even "3 / 8 in 10" etc etc etc etc.
You can see how I'd have to have bunches of different ways to write possible variables in order for the built in search to find the product. Then add in every possible way to write each option, and misspellings for options that are words, OR colors that might describe the description of the product that are not options, etc. and you get to see what my quandary is.

I have purchases three extensions and I don't use any of them anymore since none of them are better then the build in one - and in one case - it actually retrieves irrelevant results, which is worse then too little results in my opinion.
I'd also think it would be great to have the category link come up when someone types is something like "Action" and Action is a product category.
Anyone have these types of problems overcome?
If so, did you do it by a search extension, manually adding more stuff to product fields in admin, an extension that scrapes the product and updates fields for each product, or ?

Thank you,
Mike

Hi Mike

https://www.getclearthinking.com/smart-search
https://www.getclearthinking.com/smart-search-pro

Have you not tried these?

I have not. I was looking at them but with the other attempts I am a little shy of buying anything new yes, as my luck hasn't been good with the others. I'd love people to give me their "I love X" type of input for search options.

Mike

Clear Thinking is the forum user @Johnathan // Administrator

Im sure you will be fine with him rather than the marketplace, drop him a DM im sure he will help and put your mind at rest.

Clear Thinking is Jonathan - it always works
Everyone will agree.

I have been using smart search since OC1.5.5.1 on different projects OC2 and OC3 no issues at all - my clients always think its great too.
and 'ditto' re the link comment from WaxedPerfection I probably should have mentioned that

Thanks for the compliments, everyone.

Mike, I think Smart Search or Smart Search Pro would work for what you need, but I'm not entirely sure about the numeric formats and what the extension would find. Smart Search can definitely search on the option fields, so it should find the product based on that data (though it may find other products if you search on other fields as well).

Feel free to contact me at www.getclearthinking.com/contact and we can discuss it further if you want. I can set up some example demo so we can test it out for you before purchasing.

If anyone else has something that may solve Mike's problem, though, feel free to chime in.

Johnathan wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 17, 2023 2:41 am

Thanks for the compliments, everyone.

Mike, I think Smart Search or Smart Search Pro would work for what you need, but I'm not entirely sure about the numeric formats and what the extension would find. Smart Search can definitely search on the option fields, so it should find the product based on that data (though it may find other products if you search on other fields as well).

Feel free to contact me at www.getclearthinking.com/contact and we can discuss it further if you want. I can set up some example demo so we can test it out for you before purchasing.

If anyone else has something that may solve Mike's problem, though, feel free to chime in.

Thank you. I'll get back to you to see what might be workable. The main problem I see is how different people can input with x, -, spaces, etc. If your extension can get past that issue it might be a good fit. Of course nothing is exactly perfect but it does get tiring when people type in 3 / 8 and it isn't found but 3/8 is. That kind of stuff.
Get with you in a few days.
Mike

Smart Search can do Pre-Search Replacements, meaning you could replace " / " with "/" when customers enter that in the search phrase, for example. I'm not entirely sure that would work for all your situations, but it should help.

Feel free to reach out whenever, and I can answer any questions you have.