Simple catalog search

This type of search offers the customer navigating the catalog a quick and simple means to find items of interest. It offers one input criteria as the complete search expression. By specifying one or more words into a single expression, items matching those words from the catalog will be returned. Boolean support will be offered to return results containing any one word from the expression. This type of search is the simplest offered to the customer and is typical of those offered as one part of a panel on any Web page.

Once implemented, the simple version of the catalog search feature adds a text entry field to the page and a button which launches the search. The field accepts text strings which are compared against the database to find matches, and display them in the results page. If the search string is multiple words separated by spaces, the search engine treats each space as a logical 'and'.

The simple version of the catalog search is designed to require minimal page real estate, so that you can put it on any page without having to redesign major portions of the page. In fact, to provide the most benefit to your customers, you should consider including a simple catalog search databean on most of your store pages.

For an example of one implementation method for the simple catalog search, refer to the search pages which are part of the sample store.