Site Search Testing Preview

Use preview and testing to confirm Site Search is working before rollout.

The admin console includes a Preview tab under Search Configuration. It shows the saved search configuration in a full inline search preview, including scope tabs, filters, sorting, and result cards. During rollout, this tab may be visible only to Airgentic support or superusers. If you cannot see it, test through the normal website integration or ask Airgentic support to run a preview.

The preview is for trying the saved configuration. It does not save changes from the preview screen itself.

What to Test

Run representative searches that real visitors are likely to use.

Examples:

product or service names
support topics
program or course names
common abbreviations
contact or application questions
pages from different sections of the website

Preview Checklist

Check the following before rollout:

Search results appear for common queries.
Top results are relevant.
Category tabs make sense.
Search Fields used for filters have values in the index.
Filters show useful values.
Each scope shows the expected filters.
Sort options work as expected, such as relevance and date order.
Result cards show the expected layout, images, summaries, and badges.
AI answers are helpful, if enabled.
This site and All sites behave correctly, if enabled.
Pagination works.
Mobile layout is usable.
Links open the expected pages.

Testing Search Context

If your service uses This site search context, test from the actual website domain or a realistic staging domain.

Localhost testing may not represent real current-site behaviour because the page host may be localhost instead of the indexed website host.

Testing After Configuration Changes

If a change affects indexed fields, categories, or crawl scope, run the required reprocess or reindex job before judging the results.

If a change only affects display, scopes, result cards, or layout, it may take effect after saving and reloading configuration.

When testing a new Search Field:

Save the field configuration.
Run the required reprocess or reindex job.
Search for pages that should contain the field.
Confirm the filter appears and has sensible counts.
Apply the filter and confirm results narrow correctly.

For multi-valued fields, test a page that should produce more than one value. For hierarchy fields, test each visible level of the drill-down path.

When testing scopes:

Check that each expected tab appears.
Select each tab and confirm the results match the intended page_type.
Confirm that each tab shows only the filters intended for that scope.
Test the default sort and any visitor-facing sort dropdown.

When testing result cards, check:

The scope is assigned to the intended result card.
The selected layout is suitable for the result type.
Metadata badges show useful values and hide cleanly when values are missing.
Custom layout blocks have values for representative results.
Cards still scan well on mobile width.

When testing standard result fields such as title, description, image, or date, confirm which configuration source is active:

Existing services usually use Web Crawl Configuration > Standard Result Fields.
Services opted into descriptor-backed standard fields use Search Configuration > Fields.

The Debug switch shows lower-level backend diagnostics for support and troubleshooting. Leave it off for normal customer testing.

When to Ask Airgentic Support

Contact Airgentic support if: