About Direct Hits

Direct hits let you redirect a customer to a specified URL when the customer searches for a matching term. This kind of functionality lets you improve the navigation of the search of your website.

Using Direct Hits

Direct hits consist of two main elements: the URL of your website, and one or more comma-delimited search terms. Direct hits are specified as follows:

    website_URL: term
    website_URL: term, term, term

For example, suppose that you have a corporate website with a page that specifies all of your terms and conditions. When a customer searches for your terms and conditions, rather than showing the results, you can redirect the customer to your terms and conditions page.

    https://www.mycompany.com/policies.asp?article=terms: terms and conditions, terms, conditions, security
    https://www.mycompany.com/press/news.asp: press releases, press

If the query term does not match any direct hits, search results are returned in the usual manner.

Configuring direct hits

You can specify search terms that redirect a web browser to a URI instead of returning search results.

Blank lines and comment lines beginning with a ‘#’ (hash) character are permitted.

To configure direct hits

1. On the product menu, click Rules > Direct Hits.

2. In the Direct Hits field, enter the URL of your website, and one or more comma-delimited search terms.

3. Click Save Changes.

4. (Optional) Do one of the following:

   • Click History to revert any changes that you have made.

     See Using the History option.

   • Click Live.

     See Viewing live settings.

   • Click Push Live.

     See Pushing stage settings live.

Testing direct hits

Before you push direct hit rules live, you can test direct hits by entering a term.

If you test a term that is not covered by a direct hit rule, a message is displayed letting you know. Under such a scenario, if the direct hit rule was live on your website, search results would be returned as usual. If you test a term that is covered by a direct hit rule, a message is displayed letting you know that a redirect to the specified URL has occurred.

To test direct hits

1. On the product menu, click Rules > Direct Hits.

2. In the Test Direct Hits field, enter a search term, and then click Test.

3. (Optional) Do one of the following:

   • Click History to revert any changes that you have made.

     See Using the History option.

   • Click Live.

     See Viewing live settings.

   • Click Push Live.

     See Pushing stage settings live.