Card #577 · Shopify App Store
Shopify search engine update breaks SKU and relevance matching
A recent unannounced update to the Shopify search results engine has caused significant relevance issues, where exact product titles return hundreds of unrelated results. Additionally, the results page now requires exact SKU matches, breaking partial SKU searches that previously worked, leading to a poor customer experience and lost conversions.
Pain score
0.97/ 1.00 · weighted product of four components
Reach1.00distinct authors (log-normalized)
Recency1.00freshness decay, half-life months
Engagement0.84upvotes + comments, normalized
Monetization1.00willingness-to-pay cues in evidence
§ Evidence — 5 verified quotes
searching a full exact product title now returns hundreds of results instead of just that product.
the new engine seems to have switched to exact-match SKU for the results page while the predictive search still works the old way.
They basically switched it to exact match sku for the results page.
if you search the sku of an item the results give you, the item with the sku, but it also showed you 1000+ products that have no relation whatsover.
if you're on a catalog-heavy store or one where customers regularly search specific product names or codes, this is probably costing you conversions silently.
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