Aggregated Search

What is Aggregated Search?

Aggregated search is a search experience that unifies results from different sources (verticals) into one page. Instead of sending users to separate “silos,” it composes a single SERP that can include products, category pages, blog/how-to content, FAQs, reviews/UGC, store locator results, and even help center entries.

Contrast: Federated search runs queries across multiple systems and returns them side-by-side; aggregated search goes further by normalizing, ranking, and blending results to form one coherent list (often with optional tabs or blocks per vertical).

How does it work?

• Connectors & verticals: Integrate product index, CMS, help center, reviews, store locations, community, etc.
• Normalization: Map each vertical to a common schema (title, snippet, URL, score, freshness, popularity).
• Query understanding: Tokenization, synonyms, typo tolerance, entities, intent/classification (e.g., transactional vs informational).
• Scoring & re-ranking: Per-vertical scoring → fusion/blending (e.g., weighted reciprocal rank, learning-to-rank, recency boosts).
• Deduplication & grouping: Merge near-duplicates; group variations (same product colorways, same article localized).
• Policies & guardrails: ACL/security trimming, safe search/compliance, freshness SLAs, business boosts (campaigns).
• Presentation: One blended list plus optional blocks/carousels (Top Products, Guides, FAQs) and tabs to drill into a single vertical.

Why it matters in e-commerce

• Faster path to value: Shoppers see buy options + guidance on the same page (e.g., size guide alongside products).
• Higher conversion & fewer exits: Reduces pogo-sticking between product results and content.
• Support deflection: Surfaces FAQs/how-tos for intent that isn’t purchase-ready.
• Better discovery: Cross-links related categories and editorial content, lifting long-tail relevance.
• Insight for SEO & merchandising: Top internal queries and clicked content inform new landing pages and category curation.

Best practices (product + content blending)

• Intent-aware blending: For transactional intent, prioritize products; for informational, elevate guides/FAQs—use a simple classifier.
• Consistent snippets: Show comparable fields across verticals (title, short snippet, badges like “In stock,” “Updated”).
• Block caps & diversity: Set per-vertical maxima (e.g., 5 products, 3 articles) and enforce diversity to avoid monotony.
• Freshness & availability: Boost recent content and in-stock products; suppress discontinued items.
• Latency budgets: Parallelize calls; cache per-vertical; degrade gracefully (show partial results quickly).
• Security trimming: Apply ACLs at index/query time to avoid leaking restricted SKUs or internal docs.
• Analytics: Track per-vertical CTR, time to result, zero-result rate, query reformulations, support deflections.

Challenges

• Conflicting relevance signals across verticals; requires calibration or LTR.
• Duplicate/near-duplicate URLs from CMS, UGC, and translations.
• Latency from federated backends; needs caching and timeouts.
• Over-promotion of one vertical (e.g., products) suppressing helpful content.
• Governance of taxonomies and synonyms across heterogeneous sources.

Examples (e-commerce)

• Query “nike trail running” returns: Top Products (men’s trail shoes), a Trail Running Size Guide, a Care & Cleaning article, local stores with stock, and relevant community reviews.
• Query “return policy” blends the policy page, FAQ entries, and contact options—no product clutter.

Summary

Aggregated search unifies products, content, and support into a single, intent-aware results page. Done well, it speeds decision-making, raises conversion, and reduces support load by showing the most useful verticals for each query—without forcing users to switch silos.