From SQL to Solr – A Smarter Search Experience
Delivered - May 2025
Major functional upgrade
Delivered, May 2025
Faster, more responsive product search, particularly on large catalogues
What changed
The legacy SQL-based search was replaced with a Solr-powered search engine.
Real-time suggested search terms were introduced, assisting customers as they type.
Search results load without a full page reload.
Search was aligned with the platform's headless architecture, enabling API-driven frontend capabilities.
It laid the groundwork for the search filtering, personalisation and AI-driven ranking that followed.
Key benefits
Suggested search
Customers receive suggestions as they type, which gets them to the right product faster.
Results without page reloads
Results are fetched dynamically, so browsing and filtering feel immediate rather than stepwise.
Why Solr?
Solr is an enterprise-grade search engine that brings:
Performance and scalability - handles large catalogues comfortably
Relevance and speed - accurate results, returned quickly
Flexibility - supports the filtering, personalisation and ranking work built on top of it since
Where to configure it
Search behaviour is now configured per store under Store Settings > Catalogue & Products, covering filter search, search filters, predictive search and automatic search indexing. A store can also be re-indexed on demand from System > Search Indexing.
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