Query Relaxation

What is Query Relaxation?

Query relaxation is a controlled process that widens constraints—e.g., remove quotes, drop a rare term, ease a facet, or allow fuzziness—when the exact query cannot return enough results.

How It Works (quick)

• Trigger: Low/zero results after hard filters.
• Steps (progressive): phrase → bag-of-words → allow fuzziness → drop least-informative term → relax a facet.
• Visibility: Show applied relaxations as removable chips; keep “search instead for” link.
• Guardrails: Never relax brand/SKU/price constraints without explicit user action.

Why It Matters in E-commerce

• Rescues long-tail and typo-prone searches.
• Prevents dead ends while preserving user trust.

Best Practices

• Define a playbook per category; measure impact.
• Apply a single change per step; stop as soon as k results found.
• Log relaxations; review for synonym or content gaps.

Summary

Relax just enough to be helpful—clearly, reversibly, and under strict guardrails.