Live Search Default Merchandising Rules Introduced

February 2023 brought an often-requested feature to Adobe Commerce Live Search: default merchandising rules. Merchants can now define fallback re-ranking rules that apply across all searches, significantly reducing the manual effort required to maintain search quality at scale.

The Problem with Manual Merchandising

Before default rules, merchandising Live Search required building individual rules for specific search terms. A merchant selling footwear might create rules for 'running shoes', 'sneakers', 'boots', etc. This approach works for high-volume terms but breaks down quickly due to long tail searches, maintenance burden, inconsistent experiences, and optimization paralysis.

Default Rules: A Fallback Strategy

Default rules solve this by allowing merchants to define a global fallback that applies to any search without a specific rule. A merchant might create a specific rule for 'running shoes' while setting a default rule that boosts high-margin items, buries out-of-stock items, and excludes discontinued products. When a customer searches 'trail running shoes' (with no specific rule), the default rule kicks in, ensuring consistent merchandising principles apply.

Merchandising Logic Options

Default rules support several re-ranking strategies: pinning specific products to the top, boosting ranking weight for products matching criteria, burying certain products, and exclusion to remove products entirely from results.

Business Impact

For merchants, default rules drive measurable improvements: higher conversion through consistent visibility for high-margin products, lower support burden with fewer out-of-stock complaints, faster time-to-value without needing rules for every search term, and easier A/B testing of rule variations.

Technical Implementation and Analytics

Rules are applied server-side during search execution with zero performance impact. Changes take effect within minutes. Live Search's analytics dashboard shows default rule performance, including how often default rules apply, click-through rates, conversion rates, and which re-ranking actions are most effective. This data helps merchants refine their default rules over time.

Looking Forward

Default merchandising rules shift Live Search from a tactical tool to a strategic one. Combined with AI-driven personalization and intent detection, this lays groundwork for truly intelligent search experiences. Merchants who adopt default rules early gain a competitive advantage: their long-tail searches become revenue drivers instead of disappointments.