A Brief Guide To Hide Products From Search In Shopify

Ellie Ho

Jun 7, 2024

•

3 min read

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While displaying your entire inventory is appealing, strategically hiding certain products from search in eCommerce stores can benefit your business. A survey conducted by McKinsey revealed that 70% of consumers switched to a different brand or retailer when their desired product was unavailable. Only 13% remained loyal to the brand and waited for the product to be restocked.

By removing stockouts or not-yet-ready-for-launch products, you can prevent customer frustration and maintain a positive shopping experience.

This comprehensive guide will explore the various methods Shopify stores use to hide products from search results, as well as essential tips and tools to manage your product visibility effectively.

Why Hide Products from Shopify Search?

Hiding products from search can offer several strategic advantages, depending on your specific needs. Here are some common scenarios:

1. Exclusive Access

Customer tiers are a common practice in loyalty programs. With this strategy, many stores make certain products available and accessible only to VIP or high-tiered customers or program members. Therefore, these items need to be hidden from the general public.

Implementing exclusive access to a particular product collection allows you to offer special discounts or limited-edition products to select groups. This fosters a sense of exclusivity and provides a premium experience that keeps customers engaged with high-end products.

2. Seasonal Collections

Holiday-themed items are an excellent idea for conducting holiday sales. However, it might not make sense to display these products year-round.

Instead of removing them entirely from your store, hiding them from search results allows you to reactivate them when they are relevant again. Hiding out-of-season products also lets customers focus on relevant items without cluttering search results.

3. Inventory Management

Managing out-of-stock products is a headache. There are many conversations surrounding whether to remove stockouts from storefronts.

From our perspective, sold-out products can lead to customer frustration and disappointment when they appear in search results. By hiding these products, you can ensure that customers only see what’s available. This strategy is particularly useful for managing products with limited availability.

4. Prep for Product Launches

When preparing to launch a new product, you might want to list it on your store without it being searchable. This helps you fine-tune product details and pricing before making it public.

Listing "coming soon" products on your store while making them unsearchable provides valuable time to finalize product details and pricing. This strategy can also arouse interest and drive sales when the product officially becomes available.

How to Hide Products from Search in Shopify

There are several ways to hide products from search results on Shopify, each with its own advantages and limitations. We'll explain the most popular ones so you can choose the best method depending on your specific needs and technical expertise.

1. Customizing Search Behavior using Boost AI Search & Discovery

Boost AI Search & Discovery is a powerful yet user-friendly app designed to enhance your Shopify search experience. We offer a comprehensive range of features, from basic search functionalities like synonyms, stop words, and redirects to sophisticated AI-powered intelligent search systems.

To hide products from Shopify search with the Boost app, you'll use the Merchandising feature.

Step 1: Access Search Merchandising

Go to your Boost app admin, navigate to the top menu, and choose Search > Merchandising.

Step 2: Create a Hide strategy in Merchandising

Click the + Add new rule button in the top right-hand corner. Select Commerce search in the dropdown.

Fill in the Rule conditions. If you want to hide products for all searches, in the Apply to field, choose All search terms.

In the Strategies section, click Hide. Then, you can choose to hide specific products by switching to By product items or hide a product group by using By attributes.

When using attributes to exclude products from Shopify search, you can combine multiple fields, such as vendor, stock status, tag, metafield, review rating, etc. This is a significant advantage of Boost AI Search & Discovery.

Moreover, Boost improves time efficiency by allowing you to set up rules that automatically manage which products are visible, saving you the effort of manually updating your store. Once the rules are in place, the app automates the exclusion process, minimizing the need for ongoing adjustments.

That's why this is a more efficient and scalable solution compared to Shopify’s default settings.

2. Using Shopify Metafields

Now let's take a look at the complicated process to hide Shopify products from search using metafields.

Step 1: Navigate to Metafields

Navigate to the right-hand menu of your Shopify admin. Click on Settings > Custom data. Here you can see all the metafields of your Shopify stores.

Step 2: Create a new Product Metafield for hiding products from search

Choose Products > Add definition to create a new metafield.

In the Name field, enter Hide from search. In the Namespace and Key section, write seo.hidden. Set the Field type to integer.

Click Save.

Step 3: Manually hide product by product

Go to the Products section on the Shopify admin.

Identify the specific product(s) you want to remove from your storefront temporarily. You can browse alphabetically, use the search bar, or filter by collections. Click on the product to access its individual settings.
Scroll down to the product details and locate the Hide from search meta field you just created. In the provided box, set the value to 1.

Click Save.

Using Shopify metafields, you will need to review and update your hidden products regularly to align with changing business goals. Custom coding can be applied to tailor visibility settings further. However, regular Shopify users are not tech-savvy.

Furthermore, some Shopify themes and apps may not fully support the metafield settings used to hide products. Therefore, your metafield settings may not function as intended.

3. Bonus: Adjusting Product Listing in Collections

To manage product visibility in Shopify collections, you can leverage the same Merchandising tool in Boost AI Search & Discovery.

The only difference is when clicking + Add new rule, choose Collection in the dropdown.

There is another way to adjust the display of out-of-stock products with Boost.

First, go to Filter > Display settings.
Click on the Product list tab.
Here you'll find the Out of stock display options where you can choose to show or hide the stockouts or hide them after customers use the filter.

Remember to Save settings for the customization to be reflected on your storefront.

Additional Notes When Hiding Products from Search in Shopify

While hiding products from search can be beneficial, it's essential to consider the potential implications

SEO Impact

Excluding items from search results can have an impact on your Shopify store's SEO performance. When a product is hidden, it's not indexed by search engines, potentially affecting organic traffic. As a result, it's essential to carefully consider the trade-offs between the benefits of hiding a product and the potential SEO drawbacks.

User Experience

Hiding products can frustrate users if they are unable to find the items they are looking for. For example, a popular product suddenly missing from search results could lead to confusion.

Make sure to communicate clearly with your customers, especially when hiding out-of-stock products or exclusive items. You should also set up suitable redirects for any hidden products.

Theme and App Integration

Before implementing any product-hiding strategies, ensure that your Shopify theme and any third-party apps support the changes. Incompatibility issues can lead to broken links, missing product pages, or search results that don’t reflect your desired settings.

Final Words

Managing product visibility in Shopify is crucial for optimizing your store's performance. By strategically hiding products from search, you can improve customer experience, manage inventory effectively, and boost your SEO efforts.

We've explored some primary methods to help you with this. Obviously, Boost AI Search & Discovery offers a far more user-friendly and automated approach than Shopify.

Start your free trial with Boost today and enjoy many other features to elevate online product discovery!

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Ellie Ho

•

Content Marketing Specialist

September 11, 2024

•

3 min read

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A Brief Guide To Hide Products From Search In Shopify

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