Category boost

A category boost ranks the products in a category higher. It is useful when products that belong together for a while, such as a theme or a campaign, are spread across the category tree. If the shop keeps those products in a category of their own, you can boost that category without changing the product data.

You set up category boosts in the Categories section of the Playground effects. See Effects.

What a category boost does

A category boost has a weight. Every product in the category gets that weight added to its score, and so does every product in the subcategories of the category. Like a parameter weight, a higher weight moves the products further up.

A category boost of 10 has the same effect as a parameter weight of 10 on a product with the highest value for that parameter.

Boosts add up

Each boosted category is its own setting with its own weight, and you can boost any category, including a subcategory of a category that is already boosted. A product gets the boost of every boosted category it is in:

A product that is in the same boosted category through more than one path gets that boost once.

Inheritance and exclusion

Each boosted category is inherited between experiences on its own, in the same way as each parameter. One category can be inherited while another is customized on the same experience. See Business rules and inheritance.

When you exclude a category, it boosts nothing in that experience and in the experiences below it, so its subcategories are not boosted through it there either. A subcategory that has a boost of its own keeps that boost.

Campaigns and themes

To boost a theme for a fixed period:

1. Make sure the themed products are in a category of their own, for example Halloween.
2. Create a time-based variant of the experience for the period of the campaign.
3. In the variant, boost the theme category.

While the period is active, searches use the variant and the themed products rank higher. When the period ends, the experience goes back to its normal settings, and nothing needs to be removed from the product data.

Things to know

• A boost covers the products in subcategories only if the product data has the complete category path for each product, from the top category down. A product that has only its lowest category is not boosted through the categories above it.
• A category boost cannot be negative. To rank the products of a category lowest, use Bury with the category.
• A category boost does not depend on the search phrase, and it does not match on category names. To make matches in category names count more, use search relevance.
• Category boosts take effect in search after the next publication, like other business rules.