Announcement

Upcoming changes to category configuration pages and the search algorithm


We are making some enhancements to the category pages in control. Based on your feedback we made some tweaks to the search algorithm to boost relevant results. Read on to learn what is going to change:





Category pages in Control

We will update the UI of the category pages in control, we will split the category configuration page into three different views. We’re aiming to declutter the configuration page and to create a more meaningful view of the settings and their options.








Category details: Configure default category options such as title, description and hero images








Curated content (optional): Configure the curated content of this category to help your users find their answers quickly








Permissions: Configure category permissions per user role





The new UI will be rolled out to your Control environment very soon, the exact date will be announced in this topic later this week.





Search algorithm

We’re adding some tweaks to the search algorithm to boost relevant results:




  • Typos on numeric tokens will be disabled to have better matches with search queries with special formatting like serial numbers, version numbers and (zip) codes

  • Stop words (like “what”, “is”, and “a”) will be removed before executing a search query

  • Topics with the type Article will be boosted in the search results above questions that have been solved.*

* A/B tests showed us that Article topics outperformed best answer topics on both click-through rate (CTR) and conversion (users spending 30 seconds on page after clicking a search result).





Changes to the search algorithm will be in effect per July 11.
Very glad to see the search algorithm improvements, especially that last bullet point – that Articles will be boosted in the search results above solved questions! Thanks for the update, @Yoeri.


  • Stop words (like “what”, “is”, and “a”) will be removed before executing a search query







Will this be done for every language the inSided customers have on their communities or limited to English stop words?
This is limited to english stop words. We're monitoring results because topic titles / search queries that are written in natural language (e.g. What is the easiest way to create GIFs for the web?) may not deliver the desired result/position in the search result pages.