How is the order of the Search Results in my store determined?
The Search Results are not listed in alphabetical order or the product's Display Order. Instead, the order of the Search Results is determined by a weighted score.

How is the weighted score of the Search Results determined?
The Search Engine checks for the occurrence of each of the words in the Search Phrase that are three or more characters in length.

For example:
If a customer searches for "Colors of Shirts", then the search engine will check the products in the store for occurrences of both "Colors" and "Shirts". The two-character word "of" will be ignored.

During the search, several of the product's data fields are scanned for the presence of each of these words. Each time the word is found in one of these fields, the "weight" of the result is increased. Each time a word in the search phrase is found, that product's weight is increased. The higher the final weight, the higher up in the Search Results the product is listed. Certain data fields have a higher weight than others.

Which fields are scanned during a search, and what is their weight?
1. Product Name. Weight: 4 (Every occurrence of the word in the Product Name increases its weight in the search results by 4.)
2. Product Keywords. Weight: 3
3. Product's SKU. Weight: 2
4. Product Statistics. Weight: 1
5. Product's Short Description. Weight: 1
6. Product's Long Description. Weight: 1
7. Product's Image Caption 1. Weight: 1
8. Product's Image Caption 2. Weight: 1
9. Product's Image Caption 3. Weight: 1
10. Product's Image Caption 4. Weight: 1
11. Product's Meta Tags. Weight: 1

How can I use the weighted system to order the search results the way I want?
The weighted system provides control in determining the placement of products in certain search results.

For example:
I have an online store that sells shoes and shoe polish. My store sells a product named "Saddle Shoes". A certain brand of shoe polish, Hi-Gleam, is specifically made for use with Saddle Shoes. I want the Hi-Gleam shoe polish to appear immediately after the Saddle Shoes product when a customer searches for the phrase "saddle shoes" in my online store.

If I add "saddle shoes" to the Keywords field when editing the Hi-Gleam product in my store, then when a customer searches for "saddle shoes" in my store, then the following results will occur:

1. The search engine will run two scans in my store's product database. The first for the word "saddle", the second for the word "shoes".
2. The word "saddle" is found in the Name of the Saddle Shoes product. The product's weight is increased by 4.
   The word "shoes" is found in the Name of the Saddle Shoes product. The product's weight is increased by 4, for a total weight of 8.
3. The word "saddle" is found in the Keywords of the Hi-Gleam product. The product's weight is increased by 3.
4. The word "shoes" is found in the Keywords of the Hi-Gleam product. The product's weight is increased by 3, for a total of 6.
   

Search Results will list my Saddle Shoes product first (with a weight of 8), followed by the Hi-Gleam shoe polish (with a score of 6).

What if I wanted the Hi-Gleam product to be listed first?
This could be accomplished by actually adding the word "saddle" to the Keywords field for the Hi-Gleam product twice. In this scenario, the following results will occur:

1. The search engine will run two scans in my store's product database. The first for the word "saddle", the second for the word "shoes".
2. The word "saddle" is found in the Name of the Saddle Shoes product. The product's weight is increased by 4.
   The word "shoes" is found in the Name of the Saddle Shoes product. The product's weight is increased by 4, for a total weight of 8.
3. The word "saddle" is found in the Keywords of the Hi-Gleam product. The product's weight is increased by 3.
4. The word "saddle" is found in the Keywords of the Hi-Gleam product a second time. The product's weight is increased by 3, for a total of 6.
5. The word "shoes" is found in the Keywords of the Hi-Gleam product. The product's weight is increased by 3, for a total of 9.

Search Results will list my Hi-Gleam shoe polish first (with a weight of 9), followed by the Saddle Shoes product (with a score of 8).