This page explains the main concepts used in Site Search.

Search Configuration

Most Site Search settings are managed from the Search Configuration screen.

The screen is organised into tabs:

• Guide: a quick mental map for configuring a search page.
• Settings: search phrase rules and general search behaviour.
• Categories: result category mappings and auto-categorisation controls.
• Fields: indexed Search Fields used for display, filtering, sorting, and ranking.
• Filters: visitor-facing filters built from enabled Search Fields.
• Scopes: search tabs/views, scope-specific filters, result cards, and default sorting.
• Result Cards: result layouts, metadata badges, and display bindings.
• Preview: a full inline search preview for testing the saved configuration. This may be visible only to superusers.
• Superuser: diagnostic tools such as scope diagnostics, descriptor debug, and batch validation.

Existing customer-facing search continues to use the current configuration unless a service is explicitly opted into newer backend search features.

Scopes

A scope is a top-level search view, tab, or mode. It controls which subset of results a visitor is looking at.

For example:

• All
• Programs
• Courses
• News
• Help

A scope can do more than filter results. It may also control:

• which filters are shown
• which result card is used
• which sort options apply
• which category or field the scope filters on

Think of a scope as a named search view.

See Configuring Search Scopes.

Search Result Categories

A category is the most common way to create scopes automatically.

A category is a label assigned to an indexed page or document. Categories are usually stored internally as page_type.

For example, if pages are categorised as:

• Programs
• Courses
• News
• Help

Airgentic can create matching scopes or tabs:

• All
• Programs
• Courses
• News
• Help

So, in many setups, a category is a simple special case of a scope: the scope filters results where page_type equals that category value.

Categories can be assigned by:

• Manual category rules.
• AI auto-categorisation.
• URL path fallback.
• Advanced metadata or XPath-based rules.

See Configuring Search Result Categories.

Fields

A field is a value stored in the search index. Airgentic stores standard fields and optional Search Fields.

Some fields are standard:

• title
• description
• image
• date
• URL
• page_type

Other fields can be added for filtering and display, such as:

• host
• section
• format
• delivery
• subject_area

Additional fields are configured as Search Fields. A Search Field defines the field name, display label, type, source, and whether it can appear as a visitor-facing filter or result-card value.

Search Field values can come from:

• HTML metadata, such as programDelivery
• computed URL values, such as website host or URL path hierarchy
• category or other system populators

Most filter fields use Keyword / filter value. Use Hierarchy / drill-down path when the value represents levels, such as Programs > Engineering > Civil. Use Multi-valued when one page can have several values for the same field, such as Online, Burnaby.

See Configuring Indexed Fields.

For existing web crawl services, standard result fields such as title, description, image, and date usually still come from Web Crawl Configuration > Standard Result Fields. The Fields tab can show those fields, but they may be read-only until the service is explicitly configured to use Search Fields for standard result fields.

Filters

A filter is a control visitors can use to narrow search results.

Examples:

• Format: Full-time, Part-time, Online
• Delivery: In person, Online, Blended
• Subject area: Engineering, Business, Health
• Date: Past month, Past year

Filters depend on indexed Search Fields. If the field is not in the index, it cannot be used as a filter.

See Configuring Filters.

Result Cards

A result card controls how one search result is shown.

Result cards can define:

• the layout used for each result
• title, URL, summary, and image bindings
• metadata badges such as credential, delivery, format, date, or document type
• custom structured layouts for customer-specific presentation

Scopes choose which result card they use. For example, a Programs scope can use a more visual card with credential and delivery badges, while a News scope can use a simpler card with date and topic badges.

See Configuring Result Cards and Layouts.

Search Context

Search context controls where a search is performed.

For websites with many sub-sites, visitors may expect search to start with the current site and then broaden if needed.

Example controls:

• This site
• All sites

This is different from scopes. Scopes answer "what kind of result?", while search context answers "where should we search?".

AI Answers

Site Search can optionally show an AI-generated answer above the search results.

The answer is generated from the top search results and should be treated as a summary, not a replacement for checking the underlying pages.

Search can also be configured without AI answers for customers who want conventional site search only.

Curated Results

Curated results are promoted results that appear above the normal organic results when a visitor query matches a configured trigger.

They can be used for "best bet" style behaviour, such as sending searches for fees directly to the official fees page.

Curated results can point to:

• an indexed page URL, which must already exist in the search index
• a manually created result with its own title, URL, description, image, and category

Curated results are different from organic results because they are chosen by an admin rule, not by search ranking. They are different from AI answers because they are links in the result list, not generated summaries.

Funnelback Compatibility

For migrations from Funnelback, Airgentic can parse common Funnelback-style URL parameters and translate them into Airgentic search state.

This is a compatibility layer. Funnelback URLs are not the default Airgentic URL format.

See Funnelback Migration Guide.