Language
The Field Emphasis section demonstrates how to define individual fields to be less relevant for the search process. However, not all words within a field and within a search phrase are equally relevant for the search. So-called function words (the, what, who, a, an, etc.) do not contain information that is relevant to the search process, and they should be ignored.
FACT-Finder allows you to define function words and stop words. Function words simply do not contain information that is relevant for the search. Stop words, on the other hand, are words that you do not want to be found. These include expletives or terms that are subject to trademark
laws.
When defining stop words and function words, you should ensure that these are not used with meaning in other situations. For example, if “the” is defined as a stop word, then it is accorded no relevance in the search query. As a result, a search for an album by the music group “The Beatles” would be interpreted internally simply as “beatles” and could return a range of irrelevant hits.
Example 1
A shipper of bicycles has only bicycles in his shop. Each product has the word “bicycle” in its product name, along with the respective model name: “bicycle X12”. A search for “bicycle x12” will show the right product first. However, the result will be followed by the remainder of the database because the FACT-Finder finds the word “bicycle” in each of the other records. The word “bicycle” therefore does not contain any additional relevant information for this shop, so it should
be defined as a function word.
Example 2
An electronics shop sells substitute products for brand items, for instance, a “Hama battery similar to Sony”. Due to trademark laws, this item must not be found when searching for “Sony”. This term should be defined as a stop word.
Impact
The similarity between a search term and stop words does not affect the record similarity value. The similarity between a search term and function words has a slight impact on the record similarity value.
How to change Settings
You can maintain the word list in the Stop Words section of the Management Interface. If there is a check mark in the Relevance column, FACT-Finder considers the word to be a function word. If there is no check mark, it is treated as a stop word.
Recommendation
The Language settings are generally set to default values and you should not usually have to make any changes. Depending on the on the direction of your product assortment you should watch out for the terms “with” and “without”. Those should not be defined as stop words. Otherwise the search could also find contrary products.
.