Site Search is broken in 7.1

Hi there,

Some of the search results on my site don't show any thumbnail even though the product has a thumbnail etc added.

https://www.peterotoole.ie/search?q=church

On 4/18/2023 at 11:28 AM, Nerds4Normals said:

I hope SquareSpace does something to enable their search function to actually work. Many of our site's visitors have told me that they have this issue and it really is affecting our income for people not being able to find things that are there. 

Don't hold your breath on this getting resolved! This thread was started in Feb of 2020.  According to @paul2009 it was an issue that's been around since October 2019. Therefore, October 2023 will be it's four year bugaversary. 

The problem is the search is a bit unreliable in general plus only grabs CMS data and products. So in 7.1 no pages and portfolio items aren't scanned.

It's not uncommon for search tools not to get and return page data. For example in Wordpress, if a frontend builder was used pages may not be scanned but only posts type of content which in some cases could include portfolios and in some cases not. 

Webflow has really good search functionality. It's a bit painstaking to set up as the control is very granular but it works well. If you really need a superior search I'd switch platforms or use a tool like TypeSwift.

Each of the listed items show the same image, however these products only share this image in their "additional information" section, not even as a product image.  How do I change it so that the proper images show for each product, and not some random image from the additional information section ?

On 4/18/2023 at 8:28 AM, Nerds4Normals said:

I am so frustrated by SquareSpace's built-in search functionality on our website (https://www.stresslesscamping.com). When we click on the search icon and put in terms that I know are on the site sometimes it returns no results, sometimes it returns only partial results. 

The majority of the time I have to click the icon, search for content, there will literally be NO results, then I try again and that's when it shows the results even with the same words. 

Our site gets a lot of traffic in our space and people search out various relevant terms and leave frustrated. This is enough to make me consider changing site providers. Is there an update/change I can implement?

I do also have a custom Google search on the site but it's much lower on the page, however it works every time. But the search button is very convenient at the top of the page. I wouldn't mind if I could change the little icon at the top to go to the Google search if that were possible instead.

But, seriously, we live in the world of search. I hope SquareSpace does something to enable their search function to actually work. Many of our site's visitors have told me that they have this issue and it really is affecting our income for people not being able to find things that are there. 

Thanks for any input and tips. 

I've been reporting this search bug since 2000 and they still haven't fixed it. 

My only guess is that engineering is unable to fix it due to it breaking other things or they don't think search is important enough to dedicate resources to fixing it.

Search is another example of how Squarespace has really made a mess of its offerings.

The nonsensical division between 7.0 and 7.1 architectures & feature sets is telling the world that they made a mess and they don't know how to recover from it - year after year.

The usage scenarios for their 'templates' is already paper thin, but if you remove search, then their offerings are no longer usable beyond a demo. 

What did they do with all of the IPO money? It's clear now why their initial stock price has fallen steadily since their IPO (it's less than half its initial high). But I bet everyone bought new cars! 

So sad.

I tried to catch up on a lot of the comments on this thread as our site is having the same issue. 

One thing I haven't noticed anyone mention yet is that it seems to be more of an issue with the quick view / preview feature. If I type into the Search bar on our /search page fast enough and hit enter before it gets a chance to activate the quick view feature, then I get a full list of search results. If I type slower and don't hit enter fast enough, letting the quick view feature kick in, then there are no search results and I get the dreaded: "Your search did not match any documents."

Just an observation... thought maybe it could lead to something?

14 hours ago, Tim2023 said:

thought maybe it could lead to something?

It is interesting but unlikely to help us from the client side to fix the search engine issues. This is a backend issue that only Squarespace can fix and so far they are uninterested.

After putting up with broken search for years, I've finally implemented Google's Programmable Search Engine.

You can customize the look of the search bar & results, remove Google branding (mostly), and pay $5 per 1,000 searches to remove ads. It's super fast and looks pretty good.

Really disappointed that Squarespace let this issue persist for so long. Not to mention their implementation of the 7.1 version (I'd have to rebuild from scratch). I'll be moving to a different service at some point in the future when I can carve out the time.

Maybe take some of the money that went to Martin and apply it to this issue. I've been implementing Google search in many websites but this shouldn't still be on the docket for remedy.

On 7/19/2023 at 1:36 PM, creedon said:

It is interesting but unlikely to help us from the client side to fix the search engine issues. This is a backend issue that only Squarespace can fix and so far they are uninterested.

Lot's of choices out there for us.

This seems like a very basic web 1.0 request Squarespace to be able to search your own site and not jus blog posts. 

I just built a huge site that needs a search tool and now i'm left needing to pay extra to some anonymous 3rd party?

Hire those guys who build the 3rd party plugins for some help, if they can do it how come you cant?

Squarespace costs a fricken fortune these days, come on!