Operations Search: Search Tuning - Invalid Category Redirect Update

Category redirects already exist but we have rolled out an update for category redirects so the purpose of this document is to catalog that update.

The update covers updating the feature to find and “fix” invalid category redirects.

What is an invalid category redirect

An invalid category redirect is a category redirect search rule added under search rules that points to a product category that either doesn’t exist or is inactive. An example is given below. When you search on the search term connected to the category redirect, the system will try to redirect the user but since the URL is invalid it will land the user on a page indicating no category of that code is found as shown below.

How to solve an invalid category redirect

The solution is to simply “turn off” the invalid category redirect. However, once a category redirect is added, it can be difficult to track them and know when a category code gets changed as that is how the invalid redirects usually occur. Customers may be landing on the invalid link for a long time before an employee becomes aware it is there.

To solve this issue, we have added a new setting that when turned on will add functionality to the nightly job that runs every night. The job will test all the category redirects in the system to make sure they are valid. If it finds any that are not valid, it will take the action of inactivating each invalid redirect.

Secondly the system will email an employee who has subscribed to a new notification that was added for this feature. This email will list any category redirects that were found to be invalid and deactivated for the employee so they can review those later and either fix or remove them completely if desired.

Setting up the category redirect job

To turn on this feature, the setting shown below needs to be added and turned on.

• Code - jobInactivateSearchRules
• Name - Job Inactivate Search Rules
• Type - DailyIntervalJob
• Value Type - Integer
• Description - If enabled, SearchRules will be analyzed in DailyIntervalJob to determine if they are still working or no. In case they are not, they will become inactive with status INVALID
• Value - 1

Subscribing to the Invalid Category email update

Within your employee account, click on the Notifications tab and find the option “Notify me when Search Rules are no longer working” and click it to enable the notification.

Below you will find an example of the email notification the employee will receive.