Shopify’s Search & Discovery Filter Issues

Are you having challenges with your Shopify Search & Discovery App?

Filtering not working correctly -- Search & Discovery App

Your filters are not showing the intended filtered products, or showing too many products? Sometimes only 5 out of 20 items show up when you try to filter by that product type.

Shopify Search & Discovery not showing new products?

You have added new products and they don’t show up when filtering or they don’t show up on the collection page at all.

Search & Discovery displaying some products in the wrong filter

You filter and see a product in the wrong filtered type, maybe you set your product to T-Shirt and it is showing up under pants.

Frustrating isn’t it?!

How to fix this issue?

Assuming that the majority of your product filters are working correctly, this is one of the few times that it isn’t a theme development issue and is instead an indexing issue.

Only a few product issues

If you only have a few products not showing correctly, the following should help fix it.

  1. Open the product in your Product Admin
  2. If a metafield filter, change the metafield value to something new and hit save. Wait 2 minutes, then change the metafield value to the correct item. This typically fixes the indexing issue within 10 minutes.
  3. If a tag filter, remove the “TAG” and then save the product. Wait 2 minutes and then add the tag back into the product and hit save.
  4. If this is still not working, go ahead and unpublish the product by marking it as a DRAFT, then wait 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, change back to ACTIVE and hit save.

If the above does not work, go to the many-product issues steps below.

A bunch of my products are not filtering correctly or major issues on the filtering system (or search).

When you start noticing a lot of issues with your store’s filters and search results, you need to reach out to Shopify Support. Unfortunately, Shopify does not have a button you can press to re-index everything.

  1. Open your Store Admin
  2. Click on the top RIGHT menu with your store name in it
  3. Click on HELP CENTER if on normal Shopify Plans, or Contact Shopify Plus Support if you are on a Shopify Plus store (skip to step 5)
  4. Ask the assistant the following: “Help to reindex Shopify Search & Discovery,” then once it tells you there are no answers, hit “I still need help” and then ask to talk with support
  5. Once a support rep joins your support chat, type the following: Hi, I am having issues with our filters using Search & Discovery. The products are [missing / not filtering] correctly. Can you run a re-index on the store to fix this issue?

Note: you should make sure to have a few products that are not filtering so they can see that they are not working.

Another suggestion, install the free Dawn theme and verify it isn’t working in the Dawn theme. If it doesn’t work there, support cannot point to theme errors causing problems.

If you are still experiencing issues, you are welcome to reach out to our team to help solve your indexing woes!