3 min read

Meilisearch search

The Meilisearch app makes your store’s search faster and kinder to typos. A shopper who types “t-shrit”, “tshirt” or “tee” finds your T-shirts. It powers the search page and the suggestions in the search box as shoppers type.

Meilisearch  is a free, open-source search engine. It runs on a server of its own: your own server, or Meilisearch Cloud.

Prices, stock and which products are on sale always come from your store, never from Meilisearch, so search results are never out of date on what matters. If Meilisearch is down or answers slowly, your store’s built-in search answers instead, so search never breaks.

What you need

• A running Meilisearch (version 1.x).
• Its master key, or an admin API key.

Run Meilisearch yourself

On any server with Docker, choose a long random master key (16 characters or more) and run:

docker run -d --name meilisearch -p 7700:7700 \
  -e MEILI_ENV=production \
  -e MEILI_MASTER_KEY='your-long-random-master-key' \
  -v meili_data:/meili_data \
  getmeili/meilisearch:<version>

Use the newest v1.x tag from Docker Hub . Put it behind HTTPS (for example a reverse proxy with a certificate) so its address starts with https://. Keep the master key secret: anyone with it can change your index.

Only the free community edition is needed. Nothing in this app uses Meilisearch’s paid Enterprise features.

Or use Meilisearch Cloud

Create a project at meilisearch.com/cloud . Its overview shows the project URL and the Master key / Default Admin API Key.

Which key to paste

• Master key (best): the app uses it once to create a search-only key just for your store’s search, then searches with that.
• Default Admin API Key: works too. You get it by asking Meilisearch with the master key: curl -H "Authorization: Bearer <master key>" https://search.yourstore.in/keys. This key cannot create other keys, so searches use the admin key. It never leaves our servers either way; shoppers’ browsers never see a key.

Connect it

1. Go to Apps, find Meilisearch under Connections and click Install.
2. Open Apps → Meilisearch in the sidebar.
3. Fill in Meilisearch address, for example https://search.yourstore.in.
4. Paste the Admin key. It is stored locked (encrypted) and never shown again.
5. Click Test connection. You should see “Connected to Meilisearch 1.x”. This also creates your store’s search index.
6. Click Reindex now. When Products in search shows your product count and Last update has a time, your store’s search uses Meilisearch.

After that, products you add, change, archive or delete reach search on their own within seconds. Run Reindex now again only if you think search has drifted (for example after restoring Meilisearch from an old backup).

Synonyms

Some shoppers say “kurti”, some “kurta”; some “mobile”, some “phone”. Under Synonyms, write one group of words that mean the same thing per line, split by commas:

tee, t-shirt, tshirt
kurta, kurti
mobile, phone

Click Save synonyms. A search for any word in a group now finds products with the others.

How results are ranked

A match in the title counts most, then vendor, product type and tags, then SKUs and options (like “Black” or “XL”), and the description last. Typos are forgiven in words of 4 letters or more, but not in SKUs, where one wrong character is a different product. Filters and sorting on the search page (price, availability, vendor, type, tags, newest) work as before.

If something is wrong

• “Meilisearch did not accept the key”: paste the master key or an admin API key again.
• “Could not reach Meilisearch at that address”: check the address, that Meilisearch is running, and that the address starts with https://.
• “Meilisearch has no such index yet”: click Test connection, then Reindex now.
• Last problem on the page shows the last thing that went wrong while copying products. Your store’s search keeps working with the built-in search while it is shown.
• To stop using Meilisearch, uninstall the app. Search goes back to the built-in search at once.