How to install the Prefixbox AI Search & Filter App
Log in to your Shopify account:
If you have multiple stores, choose the store in which you want to install the app.
In the Shopify App Store you can find the "Prefixbox AI Searh & Filter" application: https://apps.shopify.com/prefixbox-search.
Select it then click on "Install".
Now, start the installation process by pressing the "Install" button.
While it's installing the modules, we recommend pinning the app by using the pin icon in the right corner. This ensures that Prefixbox AI Search will always be visible in the Apps section of your Shopify admin dashboard's left menu.
Follow the installation flow as described below.
Start here.
2. If you need help with the installation process you can watch the video, or click on skip to go forward.
In case there are any questions, you can always ask Emma to help you.
3. Before going on with the installation process you can read about Prefixbox features here:
4. Find out more about customizing your search experience:
5. Before completing the installation steps select a plan. You can start with the free plan and upgrade later.
6. Your initial product catalog is being synchronized.
7. You are on the "Home" page, where you can see that your product catalog soon will be ready. You can start configuring the application.
Get started
Check our video tutorial, or you can read the detailed steps below:
Before the first use
At this point, if you check the search functionality on your store, you will still get Shopify's built-in default search. You need to finish setting up Prefixbox AI Search & Filter by turning on Prefixbox embeds (Core and Autocomplete), and add Prefixbox app blocks to your Search and Collection page templates.
If you have multiple themes, select the one for which you'd like to activate
Prefixbox AI Search & Filter. You can duplicate your current theme to create a copy theme to test how Prefixbox AI Search & Filter would look on your live theme after activation if you want.
See "Set up safely with a copied theme" banner on your Home page for more, or go to "Theme Embed Overview" menu.
Activate modules - turn on embeds
First start with enabling our "Core embed". If you want to enable Prefixbox for not your live theme, go to "Theme Embed Overview" menu and choose the desired theme. To enable Prefixbox Core for you current theme, click on "Enable Prefixbox" on your home page:
This will navigate you to the App embeds tab of your current theme in Shopify's Theme editor.. As you can see the toggle is turned on for "Prefixbox Core", so all you have to do is click on the "Save" button on the top right corner.
When you navigate back to the "Home" page, you can see that the bar that indicated that the Prefixbox core embed needs to be activated has disappeared. Now you can move on to turn on the other embed (Autocomplete - search box), and Add Prefixbox Search and Prefixbox Collection blocks for your current theme.
Theme embed overview
For a clearer overview of the embed status on your themes, click the 'Theme embed overview' button on your Home page, or select 'Theme embed overview' menu on the left sidebar.
Both options will take you to the 'Theme embed overview' page.
As you can see on the current theme the core embed is already enabled, so you might continue with activating all the other modules. To activate the other modules click on the "Manage app embed" button.
The "App embeds and block" page will be displayed where you can select another theme here:
If you do not wish to select another theme, go on activating all the modules by clicking on the "Enable app embed" button.
This will activate you to the selected module's customization page where you can activate it. Make sure that the toggle is on and always click on "Save" in the top right corner of the page.
Your modules can be activated starting from the "Home" page as well. As you can see all these modules are still "Inactive" but these buttons will navigate you to the right place where you can add the selected module to your theme.
At the end of the process, the "App embeds and blocks" page should look like this:
That all the modules are "Active" will be reflected on your "Home" page as well.
Test your online store
After each module has been activated, click on the "Customize design" button on your "AI Search Engine" module:
In the left-hand menu, under "Template," click the eye icon next to "Search Results" to hide it. This will deactivate Shopify's built-in search, allowing only the new Prefixbox Search to appear.
If everything is configured correctly, you should see the Prefixbox Search Engine populated with products and filters in the theme editor's "Search" page.
If you don't see your products, check whether your product feed has been synchronized under Catalog settings menu - Product Sync history.
If your product feed has been synchronized, it will show a "Live" status. If you don't see it, click on the "Force sync" button to manually update your feed and wait a few minutes. Learn more about the Sync feature here.
Home
On the "Home" page, you will find the some useful and relevant information regarding your plan and the configuration of your application.
1. Upgrade your plan
The very first section will indicate the version of the plan you are currently using. You can upgrade your plan anytime by navigating to the "Select plan" page from here.
2. Enable your "Core embed"
If your "Core embed" module is not active yet, a bar will indicate this and by clicking on the "Enable Prefixbox" button you can easily enable this module.
Once the module is enabled, the bar will disappear.
3. Current plan info
Here, you can view the actual size of the product catalog based on the current plan, as well as the number of searches performed each month so far. Additionally, the maximum number of searches included in the current plan, which can be performed each month, is also indicated.
4. Edit theme and layout
In the next section you can find a shortcut to all the modules. You can easily access both the theme editor for each module and the layout editor.
For more details go to this section.
5. Check your analytics data
In the following section you can have a click glimpse on the most important analytics data, a quick "Search usage summary". If you need more, you can easily navigate to Analytics.
6. Highlight products, set up synonyms
You can see the current usage and the limit for the Merchandising rules ("Promotions", "Page redirects", "Synonyms") according to your plan.
The "View" button will navigate you to the selected feature where you can add and edit the related rules.
Product Promotions
Highlight specific products you want to sell by setting up promotion rules.
Page redirects
Automatically send shoppers to predefined pages when the search for specific terms.
Synonym overview
Enhance search relevance by setting up synonyms for search terms.
For more details check this section.
7. Enable your new search features
You can access the short tutorial on how to enable the Prefixbox AI Search & Filter app embeds and how to customize the layout of your search. You can do this right away or you ca decide to deal with it later. The labels will indicate which tasks are already completed and which ones are still to be done.
8. Prefixbox video tutorials
In this section you can watch more video tutorials whenever they are needed on the following:
How to customize your search design within the Theme Editor
How to manage fields
How to set up filters
How to use the merchandising tools.
9. Frequently asked questions
This section will provide your with answers to the most frequently asked questions. You will find here just some of the questions but a whole page has been dedicated to the frequently asked questions that can be easily accessed by using the "Visit FAQ page" button.
10. Prefixbox help center
This last section has been dedicated to all the available resources that can be used when working with the app.
Menu structure
In this second part of the user manual you will find detailed descriptions regarding the features of the application. Many of these features can be both accessed from the "Home" page through a shortcut, or using the main menu.
The application's main menu is the following:
Catalog settings
You can access the Catalog settings here in the main menu.
As you can see in the above picture, the first item is Field management.
Field Management
You can enrich your Prefixbox search index by adding custom fields, or change filterability, searchability and sortability of your standard or custom fields.
Custom fields can be metafields or product options.
To set them up, go to Field management > Standard fields, Metafields or Product options.
Standard Fields
In the first section you can see the Standard fields that were automatically created during the installation of the Prefixbox application. These are the default attributes of your products.
You cannot delete standard fields, you can only change their searchability by enabling or disabling the checkbox.
Go to Catalog settings> Fields > Standard fields
Edit standard field, enable or unable the searchable checkbox (if possible) and save settings.
Metafields
In the second section of the "Fields" page you can assign metafields to your Prefixbox index, or manage your existing metafields.
Go to Catalog settings > Fields > Metafields.
You can not create new metafields to your product catalog, you can only use the already created ones under Shopify's Settings > Custom data > Metafield definitions > Products
Metafields help to enrich content and provide more detailed context, making it easier to manage and display unique attributes that aren’t part of the standard data structure. They are particularly useful for customizing user experiences or handling specialized business needs.
You might use metafields to include extra details like:
Product specifications (color, weight, dimensions)
Additional images or videos
Custom labels or tags
Specific shipping information
Watch our video tutorial on how to add metafields, or read the detailed description below.
Do not use special characters when naming these definitions in Custom data.
Not all metafield types are searchable, filterable or sortable. For example, only textual Custom data fields can be set to "Searchable" when setting up a new metafield.
Click on the "+Add metafield" button to add new metafields.
Click in the "Search" field to look up the metafield that you have previously added to your product.
Select the metafield.
Save the new metafield.
Go to Catalog settings > Product sync history.
Click on Force sync to synchronize your new settings to your Field mappings.
Wait 1-2 minutes till the latest Sync version changes to a "Live" status.
*On how to make your new metafield filterable, see description at Filters.
*If you modify the filterability of a field that has already been added as a filter, it will no longer appear in your store after synchronization. However, it will still remain in the application's list of filters.
Product options
Your products might have some custom options. These are the variants of your products that are added here:
These variants can be easily added to your feed. To add these product options:
Go to Catalog settings > Fields > Product options
Here you can assign all the existing options of your products by clicking on the "Assign product options" button.
When you have added your product options, go to Product Sync history and start a synchronization by pressing the Force sync button. The assigned product options will be added to your feed and they will be filterable by default, but this does not mean that they will appear as filters on your store.
If you want to use these options as filters, you need to go to Filters and add them one by one. All the options that you previously saved can be added as filters.
Sync history - Product catalog and Collections
Sync history can be accessed under Catalog settings. Here you can check the status of the product feed at Product sync history and the status of the collection feed at Collection sync history.
Product feed syncronization
Make sure to use Force sync, both of them, whenever you change your field settings or you add a new collection to your collections.
On this page, you can do the following:
check the latest versions of the product feed, and see which version is live
start a new product catalog synchronization process by clicking the Force sync button.
By default, the search engine automatically updates your product catalog within a day (or less). The frequency varies based on your plan. The products that are not active, they are set to 'Draft' in your store, will not be synchronized. See this setting of your product in the picture below:
If you've updated your products and need an immediate sync, you can trigger the process manually, too.
After successful synchronization go to your store.
Check the search functionality on your store.
You can download a copy of it by clicking here:
Collection feed synchronization
Whenever you create a new collection, or new products are added to your existing collections, you need to synchronize both your product feed and your collections feed.
Go to Catalog settings > Collection catalog Sync history
check the latest collection feed, and see which version is live
start a new collection feed synchronization process by clicking the Force sync button.
You can download a copy of it by clicking here:
Stock management
Stock management can be accessed under Product catalog. It contains two checkboxes:
Display out of stock products
Export variants as individual products
Display out of stock products
By default, your search will only display products that are in stock.
To display out-of-stock products, enable the “Display out of stock products” checkbox here and save the setting.
Go to your store and see if the out-of-stock products are displayed.
Export variants as individual products
If you enable this checkbox, all the variants of a product will be exported as individual products.
Relevance
Relevance enables you to optimize your search results. It can be reached from the main menu.
Search weights
You can access search weights settings under Relevance:
By default, the displayText field's weight is set to 'High', while the weights of all the other fields are set to 'None.'
Depending on how you wish to optimize your search results, you can prioritize fields by assigning custom weights to both standard and previously configured metafields that are searchable.
Select the fields where you want to modify the search weight. The available options are:
None: Weight is 1, the field will not be used.
Low: Weight is 1.5.
Medium: Weight is 3.
High: Weight is 5, the highest possible value.
Set the field weights and save your settings.
Go to your store and check that your search reflects the field weights settings.
Fuzzy settings
Fuzzy settings can be used to enable spell correction. It will start working when the search input text is at least 4 characters long and maximum 2 typos will be taken into consideration.
Go to Relevance > Fuzzy settings.
Enable spell correction checkbox and click Save all.
Test fuzzy search on your store to make sure it works correctly.
Filters
On this page, you can edit or delete existing filters or add new filters.
Watch our video tutorial on filters, or read the detailed description below:
Filters allow visitors to narrow down search results based on specific criteria. By default, the Prefixbox app will display Price, Brand and Availability filters.
Only filters relevant to displayed products will appear.
For example, if a search returns a product that does not have the attribute "Brand" set, the brand filter will not be displayed.
After you have added metafields to your field mappings, you can make some of them filterable. However, not all the fields will be eligible for filtering.
Metafields that received a "Warning" during creation will not appear in the list of fields and, as a result, cannot be made filterable.
To assign the filterable attribute to your fields, follow these steps:
Go to Filters. Here you can see the list of filters. There are already three filters that have been automatically added when you installed the application: Price, Brand and Availability. The Type, Field name and Label attributes of the filters are displayed as seen in the picture below:
You can edit or delete existing filters with the icons on the right. (Make sure to click "Save all" on the top right corner after you make any modifications). Wait a few minutes after editing/deleting a filter to see the modifications reflected on your store. Once you modify something, that will affect both the Desktop and Mobile view of your filters.
You can also add a Filter display text that will be displayed next to your filters. See the picture below.
To add a new filter click on the "+ Add filter" button.
The following window will be displayed where you can create your filter settings.
You must first determine the filter type in the 'Type' field. A filter can either be a 'Range filter', or a 'Value filter'. The 'Price' of a product should be a 'Range filter' while its 'Brand' should be a 'Value filter'.
To add a 'Range filter' fill in the following fields:
In the 'Type' field select 'Range filter'.
In the 'Display text' field add the text you wish to be displayed as the filter name.
In the drop-down list under 'Field', select the metafield you previously added to your fields.
If by any chance you need a new metafield, you have to go back to the “Product catalog” > “Fields” and add it first. Only the fields that be added as 'Range filters' will appear here.
'Step' - determine the range filter slider step. The step size will determine the granularity of the filtering. Smaller steps allow for finer control, while larger steps may simplify the selection process but with less precision.
Click on the 'Add filter' button to save the changes.
To add a 'Value filter' fill in the following fields:
In the 'Type' field select 'Value filter'.
In the 'Display text' field, add the text you want to be displayed on your store.
In the drop-down list under 'Field', select the metafield you previously added to your fields. Only the fields that can be added as 'Value filters' will appear here.
If by any chance you need a new metafield, you have to go back to the “Product catalogue” > “Fields” and add it first.
By enabling the 'Search box for values' checkbox, your filter will be searchable. If you select this option, a placeholder field will be displayed where you can save a text that will appear in this search box.
'Filter value count type' - has two values:
'Show all values' - all the values assigned to the filter will be displayed.
'Show only a number of values' - The list of values will be collapsible. First, only a number of values will be displayed, the rest can be added gradually. If you select this option, two more fields will be displayed:
'Show more button text' - if not all the values are displayed at first, by clicking on this button, the rest of the values will be displayed.
'Show less button text' - after the show more button is used, you can hide again the values using this button.
Add the new filter by clicking on 'Add filter'.
Finally, click on 'Save all' to save the changes.
Test your online store for changes.
Layout settings
You can customize the design of your Autocomplete and Search&Collections page. This means that you can decide how products and filters will be displayed on both 'Desktop' and 'Mobile' views of your store.
Watch our video tutorial, or read the detailed description below.
The "Layout settings" can be reached here:
Autocomplete layout - Display mode
The Autocomplete layout can be configured here. You have to set your Desktop and Mobile layouts separately, so first make your selection here.
The default settings of your Autocomplete after installation are the following:
Desktop - Autocomplete is enabled with Two column layout.
Mobile - Autocomplete is enabled with one column layout.
Autocomplete layout - Display settings
You can design how your Autocomplete should display the keywords, categories and products.
You can also give a title to your keyword, category and product suggestions and determine how many of each should be displayed.
In addition, you will find a list of fields that you can select from depending on which ones should be displayed on product tiles.
When you have configured all the settings, do not forget to click Save all in the top right corner:
The changes will be applied in a few minutes.
Desktop and Mobile layouts need to be configured separately.
Search&Collections layout
Customize your search and collection pages by adjusting your filters, adding sorting options and setting up products display.
Search&Collections layout - Sort settings
On your Serach and Collection pages, by default, your products will be sorted by relevance.
You can set a different order for the sorting options by using the drag and drop feature. You can also add a sorting option display text by typing it in the field.
You can add a new sorting option here:
You can edit or delete your sorting options here:
Don't forget to save your settings here:
The same sort settings will be applied for the Mobile view.
Search&Collections layout - Display settings
Decide the number of products to show on your search&collections page and the information displayed on your product tiles by setting up these fields:
The settings will be applied to the Mobile view as well.
Similarly to the Autocomplete view, decide which information should be displayed on your product tiles.
Select the fields that you wish to display on your product tile. If you wish to display the "Add to cart" button, you can customize the text of it.
The HTML message that appears on your search&collections result and no-result pages can be edited here:
When you finish the layout configuration, don't forget to save your settings here, by clicking on the "Save all" button:
Below you can read about how to further customize your Autocomplete, Search and Collection pages.
Customize your Autocomplete
Your Autocomplete can either inherit the color settings of the selected theme or you can customize it by picking other colors, setting the font styles, customize container settings, image settings. You can also use a custom css to customize your Autocomplete.
To customize the Autocomplete, click on Prefixbox AI Search & Filter on the main menu. On the Home page click on Customize design here:
You can reach the Autocomplete customization here too:
Online Store > Themes > Customize
When the editor is open, look for the Prefixbox Autocomplete module. Make sure that the Show autocomplete in editor toggle is on (this makes easier to track the changes) and start configuring your Autocomplete.
Customize your Search page
You search results page can either inherit the colors of the selected theme or you can pick up your own font and background colors, customize font settings, number of products/row to be displayed, configure the product container and adjust product images. There is a possibility to use a custom css that can configure search with custom styles.
To customize the search page click on Prefixbox AI Search & Filter on the main menu. On the Home page click on Customize design here:
You can reach the Search customization here too:
Online Store > Themes > Customize
When the editor is open, select the Prefixbox Search Results module and click on it.
Go to the panel on the right side of the screen and start configuring your search page.
You can customize your products display, search page background and filter settings further in this section:
Customize your Collections page
The same customization process can be applied to your collection page.
It can either inherit the colors of the selected theme or you can pick up your own font and background colors, customize font settings, number of products/row to be displayed, configure the product container and adjust product images. There is a possibility to use a custom css that can configure the collection page with custom styles.
To customize your Collection page click on Prefixbox AI Search & Filter on the main menu. On the Home page click on Customize design here:
You can reach the Collection customization here too:
Online Store > Themes > Customize
When the editor is open, select the Prefixbox Collections module and click on it.
Go to the panel on the right side of the screen and start configuring your collection page.
You can customize your products display, collection page background and filter settings further in this section:
Merchandising
Promote the products you want to sell and add synonyms to improve your search relevance.
Merchandising modifications will be reflected in your store in just a few seconds.
Watch our video tutorial on merchandising, or read the detailed description below.
Add a promotion
Ensure certain products appear at the top of the search results page (for pre-defined search terms) by creating a promotion.
To add a new promotion Go to “Merchandising” > “Promotion overview”.
Click on the “Add promotion” button.
The following window will be displayed where you can configure your promotion rule:
Name to your rule.
Set the start date. This determines when your rule becomes active.
Define search term(s). You can define more than one search term. To add new terms, just click on the "Add term" button.
Click in the Search field of the top right side of the window and select the products you wish to promote with this rule.
When all the products have been added, click on "Save".
Wait a few minutes for the changes to become active. Then go to your online store and check that the new promotion rule works.
According to the example, if you search for "hoody", the selected product(s) should appear first in your search results.
You can add a maximum number of 10 products to a promotion rule.
Add a redirect
A redirect rule will redirect your shoppers to a pre-defined URL whenever they execute a specific search query.
This can be useful in directing shoppers to informational pages. For example, if they search 'delivery' they will automatically be redirected to your content page outlining the delivery process.
You can add multiple terms to a certain rule.
To configure a redirect rule, follow these steps:
Go to Merchandising > Redirects overview.
Click on “Add redirect” button.
Name your rule.
Define search term(s). You can define more than one search term. To add new terms, just click on the "Add term" button.
Provide the redirect URL and save the rule.
Wait a few minutes for the changes to become active. Then go to your online store and test your new redirect rule.
According to the example above, if you now search for "delivery" and press enter, you should land at admin.shopify/com/store/teststore/delivery page.
Add synonyms
Adding synonyms can help improve search result relevance.
To add new synonyms, follow these steps:
Go to Merchandising > Synonyms overview.
Click on “Add synonym” to add a new synonym.
Define the search term and keyword for the synonym. For example, if you set "wrist jewelry" as the search term and "bracelet" as the synonym, searches for "wrist jewelry" will return the same results as for "bracelet."
Set direction. It can be one-way or two-way.
(Two-way would be if someone searches for "bracelet" they would get the same result as for "wrist jewelry", too.)
Save settings.
Wait a few minutes, then test it in your online store.
You can edit and delete existing Synonym rules by clicking here:
Change the currency format of your store
To edit the currency of your store:
Go to Settings>General>Store defaults
Read more about the currency formatting types here:
Analytics
On this page, you can see you search analytics.
You can set and customize the timeframe of the reports at the top right corner.
Account
Go to Account
Here you will find information about your profile and current plan, including its price and the payment due date.
If you refresh the page, you can see the total number of API calls performed in a month, allowing you to track usage and ensure it stays within the limits of your plan.
To change your current plan click on "Change plan".
Here you can see all the available plans including the current one. You can either upgrade the current plan or downgrade it, depending on your business needs.
You can read more about how to manage your subscription here:
Glossary
Search ER
Short for Search Engagement Rate.
Description: The proportion of Unique Searches with any click or cart event.
Unique Searches
Definition: Unique search queries that returned results. The same search query is counted only once in a session.
Search CTR
Short for Search Click-Through Rate
Definition: The proportion of Unique Searches with any click or cart event. It only differs from Search ER that this metric only counts clicks, not cart events.
Search CR
Short for Search Conversion Rate
Definition: The proportion of Unique Searches with any cart event. It only differs from Search ER that this metric only counts cart events.
Search Success Rate
Definition: The percentage of product search sessions in which users engaged with (clicked or carted) at least one product on the Search Engine Result Page. This includes products in Related Product and Autocomplete modules.
This differs from Search ER, as Search Success Rate is based on sessions, while Search ER is based on Unique Searches, making the scope different.
Searches
Definition: Total number of search engine result pageviews where results were returned. Paging, sorting and filtering creates additional pageviews as well.
SERP Click events
Definition: Total product Click events on the Search Engine Results Page.
SERP Cart events
Definition: Total number of product Cart events on the Search Engine Results Page.
Search Session Count
Definition: The number of sessions that included at least one search event.
Zero Result Search Rate
Definition: The ratio of Zero Result Searches to Unique searches. It measures the proportion of searches that do not return any relevant information or matches.
Zero Result Searches
Definition: Search results pageviews where the search engine returned 0 results. Zero result searches has three types: Time-out, Filter and Not found.
Zero engagement searches
Definnition: The number of Unique searches where there was no engagement (click or cart) on the SERP in the given period.