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Magento Search with Elasticsearch & OpenSearch: The Turbo for Your Conversion Rate

DEEP DIVE Magento Search & Elasticsearch

Magento Search: The Most Important Salesperson in Your Store

Users who use the search have up to five times higher purchase intent than pure category browsers. I'll show you how we turn your search into your store's most powerful revenue lever with Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, and intelligent attribute boosting.

Request a Free Search Audit Frequently Asked Questions
5x
higher purchase intent when using search
Mandatory
Elasticsearch/OpenSearch since Magento 2.4
4 tiers
attribute boosting (title/SKU/category/text)
AI
Adobe Live Search for enterprise customers

In a modern online store, the search function is far more than just an input field at the top of the page. It's the most important salesperson your business has. Statistics make it clear: users who use the search have up to five times higher purchase intent than users who merely browse categories. But that purchase intent evaporates in milliseconds if the search delivers no relevant results, fails on typos, or — as was often the case with Magento — is painfully slow.

Since version 2.4, Elasticsearch (or its successor OpenSearch) is no longer just an option — it's the mandatory technological foundation for Magento. As a specialized Magento developer at Mironsoft, I help you configure this complex search ecosystem so your customers find exactly what they're looking for — instantly, intelligently, and on every device. In this comprehensive guide, you'll learn everything about the technical architecture, the fine differences between Elasticsearch, Solr, and OpenSearch, and how we turn your search into your store's most powerful revenue lever.

01

The Evolution of Magento Search: Why MySQL Has Had Its Day

In the early days of Magento 1 and the first versions of Magento 2, search was based on simple database queries (SQL). That worked passably with 100 products, but became a performance nightmare as catalog sizes grew. SQL databases are optimized for storing data and mapping exact relationships — they aren't built to search huge amounts of unstructured text in real time, weigh relevance, or forgive typos.

With the switch to Elasticsearch (based on the Apache Lucene library), Magento made the leap into the modern era. Elasticsearch is a distributed search and analytics engine that stores data in a special index. Imagine having to search for a word in a 1,000-page book. An SQL search would read every page one by one. Elasticsearch instead looks it up in the index at the back of the book — that's the technological quantum leap we use for your store.

The brain of your store – the search architecture – mironsoft
AI generated
02

Elasticsearch vs. OpenSearch vs. Solr: Who Wins the Race?

The terms often blur together, but in consulting it's important to know the differences:

Engine Status Distinguishing Trait
Elasticsearch Long the unchallenged standard Enormous speed, scalability, a simple REST API. Almost all Magento search extensions are built on it.
OpenSearch Recommended choice from Magento 2.4.4 AWS fork after Elasticsearch's license change. Technically very similar, often better cloud integration.
Apache Solr Faded into the background Formerly the standard for Magento Enterprise, today only recommended for very specific legacy requirements.

Assessment based on the statements in this chapter.

03

The Anatomy of an Intelligent Search: Features That Sell

A "hit" alone isn't enough. At mironsoft, we implement features that lift the search experience to the level of Amazon or Google.

A. Full-Text Search & Fuzzy Matching

Your customers often don't know exactly how a product is spelled. "I-Phone," "Aple," or "blue running shoe." Through fuzzy matching, the engine understands the intent behind the typo and still delivers the right result. We configure the so-called "Levenshtein distance" to find the optimal balance between error tolerance and precision.

B. Autocomplete & Instant Results

Already while the user is typing, we suggest products, categories, or search terms. That saves time and leads the customer straight to their goal. Combined with a fast frontend (Hyvä!), these results appear without any noticeable delay.

C. Synonyms & Stop Words

If a customer searches for "couch," they should also find "sofa." We maintain extensive synonym lists tailored to your industry. At the same time, we filter out "stop words" (and, or, a) so we don't burden the search engine with irrelevant data.

Relevance Weighting Logic

How Magento & Elasticsearch sort your search results

Processing search query...

Product Name

WEIGHT: 100

Direct matches in the name trigger the highest relevance.

Short Description

WEIGHT: 50

Secondary relevance for contextual matches within the text.

SKU / Manufacturer Number

WEIGHT: 20

Unique identification, but lower priority for keyword search.

Sorted Results List
04

The Secret to Relevance: Attribute Boosting

Not every field in Magento is equally important for search. If a user searches for "red," they should see red dresses, not products where the word "red" happens to be hidden somewhere in the technical description. At mironsoft, we configure attribute boosting:

  • Title (weight 10): the product's name is the strongest signal.
  • SKU (weight 8): important for B2B customers who enter exact item numbers.
  • Category (weight 5): helps understand the context.
  • Description (weight 1): low weight, to avoid noise in the results.

Through this fine-tuning, we make sure the "results list" actually makes sense.

05

Faceted Navigation: Filtering Like a Pro

Refinement begins after the search. In the sidebar (layered navigation), filters that match the search term need to appear. If I search for "shoes," I want to filter by "size" — for "laptops," by "RAM."

Elasticsearch enables what's known as aggregations. The system calculates in milliseconds which filter options are available for the current result set. We optimize these processes so the filter bar responds instantly even with thousands of results.

Mobile search UX – the thumb check – mironsoft
AI generated
06

Adobe Live Search: The AI-SaaS Alternative

For Adobe Commerce (Enterprise) customers, we offer integration of Adobe Live Search. This is a SaaS-based solution powered by Adobe Sensei (AI). The advantage: the search learns as it goes. It recognizes which products get bought most often for which search terms, and automatically adjusts the ranking. We advise you on whether switching to cloud search makes sense for your business, or whether a perfectly configured Elasticsearch setup is preferable.

07

Infrastructure and Maintenance: Keeping the Index Healthy

Elasticsearch is a resource-hungry service. It should never run on the same server as your Magento PHP process if you expect high load.

Our consulting services include:

  • Dedicated search nodes: we move search onto specialized servers.
  • Sharding & replication: we split the index across multiple nodes to increase resilience and speed.
  • Reindexing management: we configure Magento so that price changes or stock updates don't block the search index.
08

Why mironsoft Is Your Partner for Search Performance

The revenue boost from better search – mironsoft
AI generated

Many agencies install Elasticsearch with default settings only. That's wasted potential. As a developer, I go deep into the mapping files and analysis logic.

  • Custom tokenizers: we define how words get split (e.g. important for hyphenated products).
  • Multi-language support: we configure stemming algorithms for different languages, so "run," "runs," and "running" are recognized as the same word stem.
  • Hyvä integration: we make sure your high-speed search also renders perfectly in a blazing-fast Hyvä frontend.

Whoever Searches, Finds — and Whoever Finds, Buys

The search function is the heart of your customer experience. A technologically outdated or poorly configured search is the most common reason for frustrated customers and unnecessary cart abandonment. With Elasticsearch or OpenSearch, we have the tools to lift your store into e-commerce's top league. But it's expert tuning that turns the software into a true revenue instrument. At mironsoft, you get technical precision and strategic consulting from a single source. Let's optimize your search so it reads your customers' wishes right off their lips.

How high is the abandonment rate on your search? Let's run a search audit today and unleash the hidden potential of your catalog.

Request a Free Search Audit

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Magento Search

Why is Elasticsearch mandatory for Magento 2.4?

With version 2.4, Adobe completely removed the old MySQL search from the core, since it could no longer handle modern demands for performance and scalability. Elasticsearch is today's technological foundation, not just for the search bar, but also for rendering all categories and filters (layered navigation). Without a working Elasticsearch or OpenSearch server, a modern Magento store can no longer display products at all.

What's the difference between Elasticsearch and OpenSearch?

OpenSearch is an open-source fork of Elasticsearch launched by Amazon Web Services (AWS) after Elasticsearch changed its licensing model. Technically, both systems are nearly identical in their core functions and can both be used as a search engine for Magento. Since Magento 2.4.4, OpenSearch is officially supported and is often the preferred choice in cloud hosting environments, since it remains permanently under a free open-source license.

How does Elasticsearch help with my customers' typos?

Elasticsearch uses so-called "fuzzy queries" based on the Levenshtein algorithm. This calculates the similarity between the entered search term and the words in the index based on the number of edits needed (inserting, deleting, replacing letters). We can set in Magento exactly how many errors are allowed at which word length, so a customer searching for "Smatphone" still gets the correct smartphone results.

What is "attribute boosting" and how does it improve search?

With boosting, we assign different priorities (weights) to different product attributes. A match in the product name is far more important for relevance than a match in the technical detail description. Through targeted boosting, we make sure the most exact matches appear at the very top of the results list, which increases user satisfaction and massively boosts the likelihood of a purchase.

Can Elasticsearch also recognize synonyms (e.g. "couch" and "sofa")?

Yes, we can define extensive synonym groups in Magento. When a user enters a term, Elasticsearch automatically checks for related words and returns the combined results. This is especially important for catching regional language differences or technical terms vs. everyday language. A well-maintained synonym list is one of the most effective ways to avoid "no results found" pages.

How does search affect the performance of the rest of the store?

With a correct setup, Elasticsearch actually improves overall performance, since the computationally intensive filtering and search is offloaded from the SQL database to a specialized service. It only becomes problematic when Elasticsearch runs on the same server with too little RAM. We therefore always recommend dedicated hosting or a separate node for search, to prevent mutual performance degradation.

Does Magento also support searching CMS pages or blog posts?

By default, Magento primarily searches the product catalog. However, through targeted extensions or custom development, we can also include CMS content, blog articles, or category descriptions in the Elasticsearch index. This is especially useful for content-driven stores, to offer customers informative guide content directly through product search.

What's the difference between search in the Open Source and Adobe Commerce editions?

The Open Source edition uses Elasticsearch/OpenSearch by default. Adobe Commerce customers additionally have access to "Live Search," an AI-powered SaaS solution. Live Search uses Adobe Sensei to optimize search results in real time based on actual customer purchase behavior. For Open Source customers, however, we can often achieve nearly comparable quality through advanced Elasticsearch configurations.

How often does the search index need to be updated?

Ideally, the search index should be updated nearly in real time, especially when stock or prices change frequently. Magento uses cronjobs for this, updating the index "on schedule" or "on save." We optimize these processes so changes are visible in the store immediately, without driving server load up through constant full reindexing.

Can we also optimize search for B2B requirements (e.g. SKU search)?

Yes, especially in B2B, searching for exact item numbers or technical partial terms is vital. We adjust Elasticsearch's tokenizers so that special characters in SKUs (like hyphens or slashes) are handled correctly. We also implement "weighting" rules so that an exact SKU match shows the product as the very first result, saving professional buyers enormous amounts of time.

Why does my search sometimes return no results even though the product exists?

That can be due to a broken index, incorrect attribute settings ("Visible in Search" set to No), or a crashed Elasticsearch service. Overly restrictive "minimum should match" settings in the configuration can also cause more complex search queries to come up empty. We run systematic debugging to find the root cause and restore the reliability of your search.

How important is autocomplete (suggestion search) for conversion rate?

Autocomplete is a massive conversion driver, since it guides the user right as they type and shows them the store understands their intent. A good suggestion search doesn't just show text, but small product images and prices directly. This dramatically shortens the time to an add-to-cart click. We optimize the performance of these queries so the suggestions truly feel "instant," which mobile users in particular love.

Can search results be manually influenced (merchandising)?

Yes, through special merchandising add-ons or custom development, we can define "pusher" rules. For example, you can specify that high-margin private-label products or overstock always appear at the top for matching search queries, even if the algorithm wouldn't rank them highest. This lets you use search as an active steering instrument for your sell-through.

Does search also help my store's SEO ranking?

Indirectly, yes. An excellent internal search improves user signals like dwell time and conversion rate, which Google reads as a sign of high page quality. We also use the data from internal search ("what are people typing?") to find new keywords for your content strategy. We do make sure, though, that search results pages are set to "noindex" for Google, to avoid duplicate-content issues.

How do I start optimizing my Magento search with mironsoft?

The first step is a search audit. We analyze your current search queries, review the configuration of your Elasticsearch or OpenSearch server, and identify "blind spots" in your relevance weighting. We then put together an action plan for a search that truly understands your customers. Just send us a message or give us a call — we'll turn your search into a sales champion!