Darshan Hiranandani : Does Funnelback Search Improve Over Time Based on User Behavior?

[darshanhiranandani23]

Hi everyone,

I’m Darshan Hiranandani in discussions with my colleagues about Funnelback and I want to clarify something before making any assumptions. For a new collection (not live yet), when we search for a term like “chemistry with science,” the top result isn’t necessarily the best match, but the 2nd and 3rd results are quite good.

To my understanding, Funnelback can learn and improve based on user interactions, specifically by tracking clicks with the clickTrackingUrl (instead of the page URL alone). So, over time, if users are clicking on the 2nd or 3rd results more frequently, they should eventually move up in ranking, correct?

Is this a valid assumption? Does Funnelback’s search algorithm improve over time based on user click data and other interactions?

I know this might seem like a basic question about search engines, but I want to be sure before explaining it to my team.

Looking forward to your insights!
Regards
Darshan Hiranandani

[plevan]

Yes Funnelback will use user click data to improve the rankings over time, so long as you are using the click tracking URL in your search results (clicking on a result needs to go via the /s/redirect URL).

See: https://docs.squiz.net/funnelback/docs/latest/build/results-pages/query-processing/result-order/using-click-data-to-improve-rankings.html for more info on how click data is used by Funnelback.