Pinned products and boost
Forcing positions or pushing a set upwards, and knowing when each of the two is the wrong choice.
These are the two instruments for changing the order of the results, and the difference between them is the difference between ordering and suggesting.
Pinned products
You choose products and their order, and they go to the top of the first page even if the search wouldn't have found them. They don't show up again on the following pages.
It's for what is a decision and not a preference: the campaign product on "gifts", the new arrival on "dresses", what's about to sell out on "sale".
Two things worth knowing beforehand:
- With filters chosen by the visitor, the rule only sorts what they've narrowed down. It doesn't put back a product the filter excluded, and that's the right behaviour: somebody who filtered by "blue" doesn't want the red one at the top by decision of the shop.
- Pinning on very broad searches is expensive. Five pinned products in an "always" rule are five products everybody sees first, on every search, including the ones where they have no business being.
Boost
Lifts a brand, category or set of products without forcing positions. The engine still sorts by relevance; the products covered simply weigh more in that calculation.
It's for permanent leanings: your own brand, the category with the best margin, the supplier you have an agreement with. Whoever is looking for something else still finds it, and that's what makes boost the instrument with the fewest unwanted effects of the two.
Which to choose
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| These five products, in this order, at the top | Pinned products |
| This brand a bit higher, in general | Boost |
| This to show up in searches where it wouldn't | Pinned products |
| This to rise without taking the place of what's relevant | Boost |
The rule of thumb: if you can write out the list of products and their order, it's pinned; if what you have is a preference, it's boost.
Checking
In the playground, search the term and look at the list of rules that fired. If the rule fired and the order isn't what you expected, there's almost certainly another rule with a lower position beating it, or the visitor was comparing a filtered result with an unfiltered one.
What this does to the numbers
Pinned products naturally lift the CTR of that search: nobody clicks on what they can't see. When you read optimisation a month later, it's worth remembering that part of the improvement may be the rule and not a change in behaviour.