Shopify Search & Discovery

Shopify Search and Discovery Help: Filters, Synonyms and Recommendations

Shopify Search and Discovery is Shopify's own free app for controlling how shoppers find products in your online store. On top of the six standard filters every store gets, it adds custom filters built from product options and metafields, synonym groups, product boosts for chosen search terms, related and complementary recommendations, and a 30-day report on search and recommendation performance.

Turning the app on is quick. Specialist time goes into the parts that depend on data and theme code: attributes that must exist as metafields before anyone can filter by them, a theme without a complementary products block, collections too large to show filters, and searches that keep coming back empty. The usual hire is a theme developer at ease with metafields, working with whoever owns your catalog.

When no profile below fits, the theme customization and product setup specialists linked at the end of this page take on Search & Discovery work as well.

Open the brief with your theme, product count, biggest collection, the filters you want, and a handful of searches that return nothing useful today.

Where a Search & Discovery specialist earns the fee

Most of the effort sits in product data, not in the app's settings screens.

Filterable product data. A filter only reads attributes stored in a form the app accepts: product options, or metafields of the single line text, decimal, integer, true or false and metaobject reference types (text and metaobject lists included). The specialist decides which attributes deserve a filter, picks the type for each and fills the values across the catalog. Our metafields setup guide covers the groundwork.

Grouping messy values. Supplier data rarely agrees with itself. A filter group folds near-duplicates such as "Navy" and "Dark blue" into one choice, with up to 200 unique values per group. The Category filter can't be grouped.

Swatch and image filters. Showing color or material as swatches or images needs a metaobject reference behind the filter and a theme that supports the filter value API.

Curating recommendations. Complementary products are picked by hand, up to 10 per product. Related products generate automatically; you can add up to 10 of your own and hide the generated list on chosen products. Bulk edits run through the standard recommendation metafields or Shopify Flow.

Clearing dead-end searches. Working through the app's lists of searches with no results and searches with no clicks, then fixing each one with a synonym group, better product data or a boost of up to 10 terms.

Storefront API search. On a custom storefront, headless commerce specialists wire search to the Storefront API, which supports the app's boosts and custom filters.

The standard six need no hire. Switching on availability, price, vendor and the other standard filters is an afternoon in settings. Hire once data or theme code must change.

How to vet a developer for search, filters and recommendations

Good candidates ask for a product export before they ask to open your theme. Put these questions to them on the first call.

"Which of my attributes become filters?" Listen for a plan per attribute: product option, metafield or metaobject, and the reason. Anyone who wants to run everything through tags should know the tag filter tops out at 5,000 unique values and only displays in your default language.

"What happens to my largest collection?" If it holds more than 5,000 products, the honest answer is splitting it into smaller collections. Filters won't appear on it otherwise.

"Which searches would you fix first?" A strong answer starts from the app's searches with no results and no clicks, not from guesses about what shoppers type.

"What changes for my other markets?" Stores selling in several currencies or languages need someone who raises the price filter and translation gaps without being prompted.

Claims that should worry you. Reordering search results directly (Shopify has no setting for it), boosting dozens of products for every term, or a fixed quote before anyone has opened your theme.

A trial worth paying for. A filter plan for one collection, or a cleanup of your 20 worst no-result searches. Both show how the person reasons about product data, and you keep the output.

Shopify Search and Discovery limits that change the scope

Filter caps. A store gets 25 filters in total, standard and custom combined. The storefront shows up to 100 values per filter, even though the app lists up to 1,000. Collections above 5,000 products and searches returning more than 100,000 results show no filters at all.

Currency and language. The price filter disappears when a shopper browses in a currency other than your default. Vendor and tag values can't be translated, and filter translations follow your online store's published languages, not market-specific language setups.

Semantic search. It applies by itself to stores on Grow, Advanced or Plus with fewer than 200,000 products. It doesn't cover predictive search or the Japanese locale, and Basic stores don't get it.

Ranking levers. Shopify offers no setting to reorder results. Product data and boosts are what you control, and a boost only lifts products that are available for sale. Queries written with search syntax ignore boosts.

Recommendation visibility. A recommended product must be active, published to the Online Store and priced above $0.00; complementary picks also need stock above zero. Generated recommendations change frequently, so the in-app preview often differs from the live page.

Native search only. Custom filters and boosts work only with Shopify's native search, and Shopify's help center lists Shopify Network Intelligence, turned on in your privacy settings, as a requirement for the app. If a result-type setting seems ignored, the theme may be sending its own type parameter to search; a theme customization specialist can trace it.

Search & Discovery builds worth quoting separately

Quote these as separate pieces of work; catalog size and theme decide which ones you need.

Filter data cleanup

Messy option values grouped and moved into filterable metafields

Swatch filters

Color and material choices shown as swatches or images through metaobjects

Zero-result search fix

The no-results list worked through with synonyms and product data fixes

Complementary products block

Picks set on best sellers and the product page block configured

Oversized collection split

Collections above 5,000 products restructured so filters show again

Headless filters and boosts

Storefront API search on a custom front end, tested against the app

Questions about the Search and Discovery app

How do I set up custom filters in the Search and Discovery app?

Create a metafield definition of a type the app can filter on, fill in the value on every product, then create the filter in the app. Check it on a real collection afterwards: if your theme doesn't support filters, they save without complaint but never show to customers. Most of the hours go into the data entry, not the configuration.

Can a headless store use the Shopify Search and Discovery API?

Headless storefronts reach the app's features through Shopify's Storefront API. Its search queries support natural language search, product boosts set in the app, and custom filters for availability, price and product attributes. Filters can also run through the filter Liquid API. Ask your developer to demo a boosted term and a custom filter on a staging build before launch.

What does it cost to set up Shopify Search and Discovery?

The app is free to install, so the spend is labor. It grows with how much product data has to be created for filters and whether the theme needs new blocks. Attributes already sitting in clean metafields cut the hours sharply. Semantic search is separate: it applies automatically on Grow, Advanced and Plus.

How do I use Shopify Search and Discovery on a small store?

Keep it light. Turn on the standard filters that match how people shop your range, add synonym groups for words customers use that your product titles don't, and set complementary products on your best sellers. Then read the 30-day report monthly for searches with no results.

Why don't my changes in the app show on the storefront?

Three usual causes. The theme may send its own type parameter to search, which overrides the app's result-type setting. The theme may not support filters or the complementary products block at all. Or the change is simply slow: products updated in bulk can take several hours to appear in search results. Test on the live theme, not only in the app preview.

Can I hide a product from search without unpublishing it?

Yes. Give the product an integer metafield with the namespace and key seo.hidden and set it to 1. It drops out of online store search, sitemaps and search engines, but stays on its product page, in collections and in recommendations. If the admin says the key is already taken, a third-party app is using it.