Search Options

ProductCart allows the store administrator to adjust search performance based on the number of products in their database. For instance, the option Max Search Results can limit search results so pages load faster. Read more about this feature and other new features below.

This feature allows you to include or not include sub-categories when searching in a specific category. On a store with a particularly large number of products and categories, disabling this feature can lead to performance improvements.

There is another setting related to how product categories are handled: “Category List on Advanced Search Page”. It controls the list of categories that are presented as a possible filter on the advanced search page, and therefore affects the speed with which the advanced search page is loaded in the storefront. You can find this setting on the Settings > Store Settings page.

This is the maximum number of possible search results returned by ProductCart when you run a search. A value of zero will return unlimited results. If you have a large product catalog it is recommended that you limit search results to no more than 250.

This means that ProductCart will “stop” searching after locating the first 250 products that match the customer's search criteria. This feature allows for substantial performance improvements, and it does not affect the customer experience as someone would be able to browse through hundreds of search results.

Stores with a large database may want customers to view a waiting dialog box while ProductCart performs the search. Turn this feature ON to enable the waiting dialog box. You can change the text displayed in the waiting box within the “includes/languages.asp” file.

Here where you can enable or disable the use of the Custom Search Field Widget, which is the feature that allows for ”drill-down navigation” in the storefront.

You can turn on/off this feature in two areas:

1. When customers run a search (selecting a category as a search filter)
2. When customers browse by category

If customers run a search that does not include a category filter, or the category that they select (when browsing or searching) does not have Custom Search Fields linked to it, then the Custom Search Field Widget remains idle (no “drill-down” filters are shown).

The options listed above will enable large stores to tune their search engines for greater performance. Yet, some stores with unique scenarios may require further tuning.

If you are using ProductCart v3.5 meet the following criteria, then additional tuning methods may apply to you.

• Complex Category Structure (e.g. dozens of sub-categories)
• Apparel Add-On with tens of thousands of sub-products
• Thousands of products with large HTML descriptions

• Complex Category Structure: If your store has dozens of categories containing dozens of sub-categories and the search results hang, then you may want to disable category search results. Follow these instructions to turn off category search results:
  1. Download the file “pc/showsearchresults.asp”. Save a back-up copy.
  2. Open the file in a text editor, such as notepad or Dreamweaver.
  3. Change line word False on line 19 to True (E.g. pcv_strHideCatSearch = True)
  4. Save the files. Upload to the server.

• Apparel Add-On: If you have an Apparel Add-On containing tens of thousands of sub-products you want to disable sub-product search:
  1. Download the file “pc/showsearchresults.asp”. Save a back-up copy.
  2. Open the file in a text editor, such as notepad or Dreamweaver.
  3. Change line word False on line 24 to True (E.g. pcv_strHideSubSearch=True)
  4. Save the files. Upload to the server.
  5. Download the file “pc/inc_srcPrdQuery”. Save a back-up copy.
  6. Open the file in a text editor, such as notepad or Dreamweaver.
  7. Change line word False on line 5 to True (E.g. pcv_strHideSubSearch=True)
  8. Save the files. Upload to the server.