Grouping Product Variants

Grouping product variants in the data feed that share the same basic set of attributes can help you improve your search results.

Say you have these items in your feed:

– PLAIN round-neck t-shirt (size: S; colour: blue)

– PLAIN round-neck t-shirt (size: M; colour: blue)

– PLAIN round-neck t-shirt (size: L; colour: grey)

These are three different products, and when looking for "round-neck t-shirts", the three would show up in the search results:

However, you may prefer the user to obtain just one "PLAIN round-neck t-shirt" search results with all three variants of colours and sizes available in the facets' panel of your search results.

This way, when the user looks for a "round-neck t-shirt", only one "PLAIN round-neck t-shirt" result is shown, but "blue", and "grey" colours; and "S", and "M" sizes are available at the facets panel.

Group variants as a single item

Using Doofinder, you can set this up in the following simple steps:

1. Go to Search Engines > Settings > Indices > Configuration of your Admin Panel and enable the Group variants as a single item option in the pop-up window and click Save.

2. Ensure the products you want to be grouped share the same group_id field in your data feed.

Using the item group_id

Alternatively, you may use the de-facto standard by Google from the data feed: the item group id. Through this, all items with the same group_id attribute are considered variants of the same item.

Consequently, when you check the group products by group_id, all products that share the same group_id attribute are displayed as one product only in the search results. Still, all their variants, like colour or size, if defined as filters, are displayed in the Filters Panel.

Please note that updating the group_id of an item will affect the grouping.

Marking an item as Group Leader

If there's an item with the field group_leader set to true, that item will be chosen as the group representative in search results (if there are no other relevant sort criteria involved). All other items in the group must have the group_leader field set to 'false'. This way, the leader will be differentiated from the rest.

Lastly, the field name could be in two formats:

– Text Format

Grouping items: For product type feeds, you can use the group ID, group_id. This will work for every data type (not just the product data type).

Marking an item as the group leader: You use the group_leader field.

– XML Format

Grouping items: For product type feeds. You can use group_id. This will work for every data type (not just the product data type).

Marking an item as the group leader: You need to use group_leader.