Yext updates site search algorithm, adds experience options

Low-code ETL tool makes data unification on sites easier and more comprehensive.

Chat with MarTechBot

AI search company Yext, which powers site search for many businesses, announced an update to its search algorithm update along with some key feature additions.

The release includes revamped test search and experience training, and also a reimagining of the company’s data connector and app frameworks.

The Phoenix algorithm update enables businesses to analyze and “rerank” the best-performing search results. In this way, it takes into account the likely search results that visitors to a site have looked for most recently and shows them first in the search window, cutting down the time it takes for users to find the information they need.

With the data connector update, businesses can use a low-code “extract, transform, load” (ETL) tool that businesses can use to extract data to be analyzed in other platforms.

The search experience training and test search enables businesses to test the search experience on their properties in the way that customers see them and use them.

Why we care. It’s all about experience and navigation for a reason. Marketers like to see their customers spend a lot of time on their digital properties, but it should be meaningful time, not time wasted. If customers are getting frustrated when they can’t find the right information after too many searches, they might not spend as much time with your site in future visits. They might instead turn to a competitor with a better search experience on their site.


About the author

Chris Wood
Staff
Chris Wood draws on over 15 years of reporting experience as a B2B editor and journalist. At DMN, he served as associate editor, offering original analysis on the evolving marketing tech landscape. He has interviewed leaders in tech and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, to former Cisco CEO John Chambers, and Vivek Kundra, appointed by Barack Obama as the country's first federal CIO. He is especially interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the marketing world as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel on "innovation theater" at Fintech Inn, in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused reporting in industry trades like Robotics Trends, Modern Brewery Age and AdNation News, Wood has also written for KIRKUS, and contributes fiction, criticism and poetry to several leading book blogs. He studied English at Fairfield University, and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.

Get the must-read newsletter for marketers.