Partially matching a post code with Algolia

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I've loaded a dataset into an Algolia search index. Each item in the index is a shop with a catchment area (the catchment area is just an array of UK Postcodes that a store covers). For example:

['DS4 6','DS4 7', 'DS5 8, 'DS6 9' ... ]

The search feature is working to a point. If people search for "DS4" then Algolia returns several stores, but most people are typing their full post code (for example DS4 8XX) and this isn't returning anything even though "DS4" is indexed several times.

Is there a configuration in Algolia to search for the first part of a word, even when a person has 'typed past it'?

To clarify this a bit further. I could store every single individual postcode in a catchment area but there are millions and millions of them. A full UK postcode would be "DS4 7EN", so there are two more characters on the end representing a street in the UK. I've got the first part of a postcode: eg "DS4 7" because it seems excessive to store everything when I only really care about the wider area, ie: DS4, DS5, CV43, AB2 (and so on).

I could also probably use a places api and geocode the address. But I already have this catchment area postcode data, so it seems a shame not to use it if I can.

algolia
1 Answers

Algolia, like most search engines supports prefix search in order to allow search-as-you-type results, which is leveraged with InstantSearch libraries, where results are updated live as the user types. Without prefix search, you would have to wait for the user to enter an entire word before displaying any meaningful result.

In your case, since the catchment areas are indexed, e.g., DS4 6, when a user types DS4 6XX, no records will match the query since the query acts as a filter on the records based on their searchable attributes.

That said, I see two possible workaround that you can implement.

The first solution is to use the removeWordsIfNoResults index setting and set it to "Last Word". This will remove the last word of the query if there are no results. For instance, with the query DS4 6XX it will remove 6XX to just keep DS4 and retrieve the items that match this query. Note that this solution relies on the fact that DS4 6XX has two words (separated by a space) and it won't work with DS46XX.

The second solution is to change the structure of the records to add the full postcode in each item of the index. Since these are shops, I believe that it should be possible. This way your users will be able to search for both the full postcode DS4 6XX and the catchment areas DS4 6. Unless I misunderstood your problem, I don't see the need to store the full list of postcodes associated to a catchment area.

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