Merchandising Rules is a rule-based configuration feature within Smart Search that controls which products rise to the top of your search results and which ones get pushed down or excluded entirely. You can boost, demote, or hide products based on product tags, metafields, vendor, inventory status, price, and more, combine several of those attributes into a single rule, and decide which rule wins when more than one could apply to the same product.
You configure Merchandising Rules from the Smart Search Settings page, and they apply globally across all search terms.
What You Can Do with Merchandising Rules
Merchandising Rules lets you influence product ranking across all search results using flexible, condition-based logic. Here is what you can accomplish:
Highlight key products. Combine multiple attributes in one rule, such as a product tag and inventory status together, to surface best-sellers or promotional items at the top of search results.
Improve search relevance so the most contextually appropriate products appear first for shoppers.
Control product visibility and reduce exposure of out-of-stock, less relevant, or undesirable products.
Decide exactly which rule wins when a product could match more than one Boost or Demote rule, by controlling the order your rules run in.
How to Access Merchandising Rules
To access Merchandising Rules in Smart Search, follow these steps:
From your Rebuy dashboard, navigate to Search & Collections > Smart Search > Settings.
Scroll to the Merchandising Rules card.
Click Edit to open the Merchandising Rules slideout panel.
How to Create a Merchandising Rule
You create a Merchandising Rule from the Merchandising Rules slideout, and a single rule can combine more than one product attribute.
Click Add New Rule, then choose Boost, Hide, or Demote from the menu that opens.
Choose a Type, which is the product attribute the rule evaluates, such as Product Tag, Vendor, or Inventory Status.
Choose an Operator, such as Equals, Contains, or Greater Than.
Set the Value that the attribute has to match.
To add another condition to the same rule, click And or Or below the condition you just built. A single rule holds up to 10 conditions.
Click Save.
Note: Finish and save a rule before you navigate away, since unsaved rules are discarded. Clicking Back to Merchandising Rules throws away any incomplete rule you were building. Leaving the Settings page with unsaved changes prompts you with an Unsaved Changes modal first.
What the Rule Builder Shows You
The rule builder confirms which rule you're editing and how much of your rule budget is left. Watch for the following labels and counters as you build:
The panel header names the rule type you chose, reading Create New Boost Rule, Create New Hide Rule, or Create New Demote Rule.
Your conditions sit under a Boost if, Demote if, or Hide if label matching that same rule type.
The Value field is a dropdown for attributes with a fixed set of values, such as Inventory Status, and a text field for open-ended attributes, such as Name.
An Applies to all search terms label near the top reflects that Merchandising Rules are global.
A counter shows how many rules of the type you're editing are already enabled against that type's limit, reading for example "1 of 5 demote rules enabled."
The rule toggle switches on automatically once you select a Type, and you can toggle the rule off again at any time.
Save stays inactive until every condition in the builder is complete.
A collapsible How do boost rules work? section, worded for whichever rule type you selected, explains that rule type without leaving the panel. For a Boost rule it explains that boost rules promote qualifying products to the top of the search results, and that a product is surfaced higher when it matches both the shopper's query and your rule criteria.
How to Combine Multiple Conditions in One Rule
You can combine multiple conditions in a single Merchandising Rule so that a product has to meet more than one requirement before the rule acts on it. A single rule holds up to 10 conditions. Once your first condition is complete, an And button and an Or button appear below it, and clicking either one adds another condition row.
And requires every condition in the rule to match. A Boost rule set to Product Tag equals
body washAnd Inventory Status equals In Stock boosts only the body wash products that are currently in stock. A body wash product that's out of stock fails the second condition, so the rule doesn't act on it.Or requires any one condition to match. A rule set to Vendor equals
AcmeOr Vendor equalsGlobexacts on products from either vendor.
A counter to the right of the And and Or buttons tracks your total, reading for example "2 of 10 conditions used." To remove a condition, click the trash icon at the end of its row. Adding conditions doesn't change how the rule is prioritized, since strength still comes from the rule's position in the Boost & Demote list.
How to Manage Existing Rules
You can edit, delete, reorder, or toggle any existing rule from the Merchandising Rules table.
To edit or delete a rule, click the options menu (⋯) to the far right of the rule row. Editing opens the same rule builder used to create the rule, headed Edit Boost Rule, Edit Hide Rule, or Edit Demote Rule.
To enable or disable a rule without deleting it, use the toggle in the rules table.
To reorder rules, drag an active row in the Boost & Demote section by its drag handle. Reordering applies only to active Boost and Demote rows. Hidden rules have no drag handle, since Hide is absolute and unaffected by order.
If you re-enable a previously disabled rule, it's added to the bottom of the active list rather than returning to wherever it was positioned before it was disabled.
Disabled rules sit below a DISABLED divider, without a drag handle or position number.
Deleting a rule triggers a confirmation modal before the rule is permanently removed.
Every row carries an icon showing what the rule does. In the Boost & Demote section, a green up arrow marks a Boost rule and a red down arrow marks a Demote rule, sitting next to the position number on active rows. Disabled rows keep the arrow but lose the drag handle and the position number. In the Hidden section, a crossed-out eye icon marks each Hide rule.
Rules also summarize their conditions directly beneath the rule type. Each condition appears in compact form as attribute, operator, value, for example "Name = Hello." A long value is truncated with an ellipsis, so open the rule to read it in full. A rule with 1 or 2 conditions shows them inline, joined by "&" for AND or "or" for OR, for example "product tag = vanilla sunday & inventory = in stock." A rule with more than 2 conditions shows the first 2 inline plus a +N CONDITIONS badge, where N is the number of conditions not shown.
How Rule Order Determines Priority
When more than one rule could apply to the same product, the order you arrange your rules in determines which one actually applies. Understanding this order helps you build rules that behave as you expect.
Rules are applied in this order: Hide, then Featured, then Boost or Demote in your list order. Featured products are configured in Keyword Groups under Search & Collections > Smart Search > Keywords. An info banner above your rules in the Merchandising Rules slideout states this same order.
Rules never stack. The first rule in your Boost & Demote list that a product matches is the rule that applies to it. Once a product matches, Smart Search stops looking, so a second Boost rule further down the list does not add more lift, and a Demote rule further down does not cancel out a Boost rule above it.
Hide is absolute. If a Hide rule matches a product, that product is excluded from search results entirely, regardless of any Boost or Demote rule that also matches it and regardless of list position.
Boost and Demote share one priority list. Reordering the Boost & Demote section is how you set rule strength. The rule at position #1 boosts hardest of all your active Boost rules, or if it's a Demote rule, sinks deepest of all your active Demote rules. There's no separate weight input, so reordering is the weighting. For example, dragging an "out of stock" Demote rule to the very top of the list guarantees it sinks matching products before any Boost rule further down the list can claim them.
On the Results Page, Featured Products outrank Boosted products. Products configured through Keyword Groups appear above any Boosted product on the Results Page. When a shopper's query matches a Keyword Group that has Featured Products, the boosted products display immediately after those featured products.
Important: Boost and Demote rules apply globally across Quick View and the Results Page. On the Results Page, they only affect product ranking when Relevance is set as the Default Sort, and they have no effect under any other sort order. Quick View is unaffected by the Default Sort setting, so a Boost or Demote rule still ranks products in Quick View no matter which Default Sort you have selected.
Rule Types, Condition Types, and Operators
Every Merchandising Rule is built from the parts covered in the sections below. The rule type sets what happens to a product the rule matches, the condition type sets which product attribute Smart Search checks, and the operator sets how that attribute is compared to the value you enter. You choose all three in the rule builder when you create or edit a rule, and the available operators depend on the condition type you pick.
Merchandising Rules act on the whole product, not individual variants. Merchandising Rules evaluate their condition at the product level. When you use a value that lives on a variant, such as a variant Metafield or a Product Option, the rule matches the entire product if any one of its variants meets the condition. That whole product is then boosted, demoted, or hidden, even if only a single variant holds the matching value. Merchandising Rules cannot boost, demote, or hide one variant while leaving a product's other variants in place. The only variant-level control available today is the hide out-of-stock variants setting in the editor.
Rule Types
When you create a new rule, you select a rule type. Each rule type controls how matching products are treated. For Boost and Demote, the rule's position in the list sets its strength, not its type.
The following table names each rule type and describes what it does to matching products.
Rule Type | Description |
Boost | Promotes matching products higher in search results. On the Results Page, Boosted products appear below Featured Products and above standard results. In Quick View, where Featured Products don't apply, Boosted products are the top tier. Strength is set by the rule's position in the Boost & Demote list. |
Demote | Pushes matching products lower in search results, reducing their visibility. Strength is set by the rule's position in the Boost & Demote list. |
Hide | Completely excludes matching products from search results. Hide rules are absolute and unaffected by list position. |
Condition Types
The Type field in the rule builder defines which product attribute is evaluated. The following table names each available condition type and describes what it targets.
Type | Description |
Product Tag | Target products by their Shopify product tags, for example |
Metafield | Target products by a specific product or variant metafield value. Metafields display their full namespace and name to distinguish between product and variant metafields. |
Handle | Target products by their unique Shopify product handle. |
Name | Target products by their product title. |
Vendor | Target products by their vendor or brand name. |
Product Option | Target products by a specific option name and value combination, for example an option named Size with the value Large. Because rules evaluate at the product level, this matches the whole product when any one of its variants has that option value, and the whole product is then boosted, demoted, or hidden. |
Description | Target products by content in their product description. |
Product Type | Target products by their Shopify product type. |
Price | Target products based on their price. |
Inventory Status | Target products based on their current inventory status, for example out of stock. The Inventory Status Hide rule removes a product from search results only when all of its variants are out of stock. If at least one variant is still in stock, the product continues to appear in both Quick View and the Results Page. |
Merchandising Rules apply globally across both Quick View and the Results Page. A Hide rule configured with Inventory Status equal to Out of Stock automatically suppresses matching products from both search surfaces and restores their visibility when inventory comes back in stock, with no manual updates required.
Operators
The Operator field defines how the condition is evaluated. Available operators may vary depending on which condition Type you select.
The following table names each operator and describes how it evaluates the condition.
Operator | Description |
Equals | The product attribute must exactly match the specified value. |
Does Not Equal | The product attribute must not match the specified value. |
Contains | The product attribute must include the specified value anywhere within it. |
Does Not Contain | The product attribute must not include the specified value anywhere within it. |
Greater Than | The product attribute must have a value greater than the specified amount. Typically used with Price. |
Less Than | The product attribute must have a value less than the specified amount. Typically used with Price. |
Limits and Restrictions
Merchandising Rules has the following limits, which apply globally across all search terms. The Rules Enabled bar at the top of the Merchandising Rules slideout tracks your enabled count against each of these maximums. The following table lists each rule type with how many of that type you can have enabled at once and the shared total across all types.
Rule Type | Maximum Active Rules | Maximum Total Rules (All Types) |
Boost | 10 enabled at one time | Up to 30 rules total across all types |
Hide | 5 enabled at one time | Up to 30 rules total across all types |
Demote | 5 enabled at one time | Up to 30 rules total across all types |
Additional restrictions to be aware of:
A single rule can have a maximum of 10 conditions, combined with AND or OR.
Boost and Demote rules only affect product ranking on the Results Page when Relevance is selected as the Default Sort. Quick View is unaffected by the Default Sort setting.
Merchandising Rules are global, so they apply across all search terms. Query-specific rules aren't currently supported.
Featured Products configured through Keyword Groups always appear above Boosted products on the Results Page. Keyword Groups aren't supported in Quick View, so Featured Products don't apply there.
For text-based condition types (Name, Description, Handle), the Value field has a maximum of 255 characters.
Hybrid and AI-powered search does not evaluate Merchandising Rules. Rules apply only to Rebuy's standard search ranking.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Merchandising Rules apply to all search terms or just specific ones?
Merchandising Rules apply globally across all search terms. Query-specific rules aren't currently supported. If you need different merchandising logic for specific search queries, consider using Keyword Groups to configure Featured Products for those terms on the Results Page.
Why aren't my Boost or Demote rules working?
A Boost or Demote rule that appears not to work usually comes down to sort order or rule order.
Check your sort order. Boost and Demote rules apply globally to Quick View, but on the Results Page they only take effect when Relevance is selected as the Default Sort. If your Results Page is sorted by a different method, such as price or alphabetically, Boost and Demote rules won't affect the product order there. To check your default sort, navigate to Search & Collections > Smart Search > Results, open the Sorting panel, and confirm that Your Default Sort reads Relevance.
Check your rule order. Rules never stack, so the first rule in your Boost & Demote list that a product matches is the one that applies. If a rule higher in the list already matched that product, your rule further down never gets a chance to act on it. Drag the rule you want to win closer to the top of the Boost & Demote list.
What happens if a product matches both a Boost rule and a Hide rule?
The Hide rule always wins. Hide rules are absolute and unaffected by list position, so if a product matches a Hide rule, it's excluded from search results entirely, regardless of any Boost or Demote rule that also applies to it.
How many Merchandising Rules can I have active at one time?
You can have up to 10 Boost rules, 5 Demote rules, and 5 Hide rules enabled at the same time. You can create up to 30 total rules across all types, but only the active limits above apply at any given time. Each individual rule can combine up to 10 conditions with And or Or. The Rules Enabled bar at the top of the Merchandising Rules slideout shows your current enabled count against each limit.
Where do Boosted products appear relative to Featured Products?
On the Smart Search Results Page, Featured Products configured through Keyword Groups always appear before Boosted products, and Boosted products display immediately after the featured products and above standard, non-boosted, non-featured results. Keyword Groups aren't supported in Quick View, so there are no Featured Products in Quick View and Boosted products are the top tier there.
I saw a blue banner saying my Search Influence Rules Have Been Migrated. What does it mean?
The blue banner means your previous Search Influence rules or Out-of-Stock (OOS) settings were automatically migrated into Merchandising Rules. Your search experience hasn't changed. You can review your converted rules in the Merchandising Rules table and make any adjustments there.
How do I dynamically hide out-of-stock products from Smart Search Quick View?
Smart Search Merchandising Rules support automatic, dynamic hiding of out-of-stock (OOS) products across both Quick View and the Results Page. Go to Search & Collections > Smart Search > Settings, click Edit on the Merchandising Rules card, and add a new Hide rule. Set the Type to Inventory Status and the value to Out of Stock, then click Save.
Once active, this rule hides matching products from both Quick View and the Results Page automatically. When a product comes back into stock, it reappears in search results without any manual intervention. The rule triggers only when all variants of a product are out of stock. If one or more variants are still available, the product remains visible.
Why is a Hidden or Demoted product still appearing in Quick View before a customer starts typing?
If a product still appears in Quick View before a customer starts typing, this is usually because Quick View's "Before User Starts Typing" configuration is pulling the product in through the Trending Products setting rather than through search ranking logic. Any product ranking among a store's top trending items over the past 30 days can appear in this pre-search view regardless of Merchandising Rules. There's currently no way to exclude a single trending product from only this pre-search view. To stop a specific product from appearing before typing starts, adjust the Trending Products configuration or switch that slot to a Custom product selection in the Quick View editor.
Why is an entire product hidden from search when my Hide rule only matches one variant?
An entire product is hidden from search when a Hide merchandising rule matches only one of its variants because Merchandising Rules evaluate their condition at the product level, not the variant level. When you build a Hide rule on a variant-level value, such as a variant Metafield or a Product Option, the rule hides the whole product as soon as any single variant meets the condition. So a variant Metafield set on just one variant still removes the entire product from both Quick View and the Results Page. Merchandising Rules cannot hide one variant while keeping the product's other variants visible. Currently, the only variant-level control available today is the hide out-of-stock variants setting in the editor, which is based on inventory rather than a rule.
Learn More About Smart Search
Merchandising Rules are one part of a broader set of tools available in Smart Search. The articles below cover everything from installation to advanced configuration and customization.