Configuring search synonyms for content items

You can configure the search feature to recognize synonyms for improved search results.

Fastpath: Console: System > Settings > Search, then Content Search > Synonyms

The synonym search feature improves search results by allowing you to create lists of synonyms. For example, you might want a search for "big" to return results for "large", and vice versa. Or, if your users search using terms specific to your industry, you might want to set up a synonym that associates commonly used terms, such as "mobile" and "phone".

Synonyms are language-specific. If you have multiple languages enabled, you need to enable them per language. For more information about enabling search for multiple languages, see Enabling content search in multiple languages.

Note that by default, new synonyms work only on new content. If you want to apply new synonyms to preexisting content, you need to rebuild the Content Search index, which takes significant time and can affect system resources. For more information, see Reindexing content search and Configuring search index rebuild.

To set up search synonyms:

  1. In the Admin Console, go to System > Settings > Search, then open the Content Search > Synonyms tab.
  2. Under Synonyms, type in a comma-separated list of synonyms for terms.
  3. Click Add Synonyms.
  4. Rebuild the content search index, as described in Reindexing content search.

The synonyms for terms are added to the system and will be available for the newly created items.

Warning: Before you rebuild the community index, consider performance and the needs of your site users. We recommend that you do not reindex search manually during peak usage hours, for example, or during a site-wide campaign or an event that results in high usage.