Products that do not show up

The usual causes, in order of likelihood, and how to confirm each one in under a minute.

A product that exists in the store and does not come out in search almost always has a simple explanation. It is worth following this order, because it goes by likelihood and not by seriousness.

1. Start with the playground

Before touching anything at all, search for the product in Search → Playground. There you see what the engine returns, without the search panel, without the theme and without spending requests from your plan.

• It shows up in the playground and not in the store: the problem is on the store side (the search panel, the theme, the visitor's filters). Jump to point 5.
• It does not show up in the playground: the product is not in the index the way you expect. Carry on.

2. Is the product really visible in the store?

Inactive, with no category assigned, outside the publication date range, or invisible to PrestaShop's own search. The index is a copy of what the store exports; what the store does not give, we do not have.

3. It is out of stock, and the option says to hide

The module's Products out of stock option has three values: index them anyway, push them down in the results, or hide them. On the third one, a sold-out product disappears from the results, which is exactly what was asked for, and it is easy to forget six months later.

4. Indexing has not been past it yet

Products created by import or straight into the database may not have triggered real time. Check under Search → Search engines when the last indexing was and how many documents each engine has, and compare that with the number of active products in the store.

If the difference is large, force a reindex.

5. It shows up, but not for the term you are typing

Here the product is in the index and it is search that does not connect it to those words:

• The field the word is in has zero weight. A weight at zero takes the field out of search entirely. Check in where search looks.
• The word is in no field at all. This is the classic vocabulary case: customers write "trainers" and the catalogue says "running shoes". It is solved with synonyms, not with weights.
• It is there, but well down the list. That is relevance, not absence. The playground shows the order and why; if the product has to be at the top for that search, it is a case for a merchandising rule.

6. The visitor has filters active

A chosen filter cuts the results down, and a product without that value filled in is left out. It happens a lot with features filled in on only part of the catalogue.

7. You are looking at the wrong engine

In a store with more than one language or currency there is one engine per combination. The product may be in the Portuguese engine and missing from the French one, because the store does not export it in that language. The selector at the top of the search screens is what tells you which one you are on.

If none of this explains it

Write to us through contact with the identifier of a specific product and the term you were searching for. We can see the indexing log for that reference and tell you why it was left out.