How to Rank Best Sellers First Without Making Search Worse (Shopify Plus)

When a Shopify Plus store’s search isn’t converting, the instinct is obvious:

“Let’s push our best sellers to the top.”

That can work but if you do it blindly, you create a new problem: customers stop trusting search because results feel “salesy” or irrelevant.

The fix is to treat this as searchandising: layering business goals (best sellers, margin, availability) on top of relevance, not replacing relevance. Shopify itself supports this direction through product boosts and synonym groups in its Search & Discovery capabilities.

1) Semantic relevance

“What matches the words the shopper typed?”

2) Commercial relevance

“What is the most likely to sell for that intent?”

Your goal is not “best sellers first for everything.” Your goal is: best sellers first where it makes sense for that query’s intent.

That’s exactly why our overall process builds:

• Search intents
• Keyword dictionary
• Best sellers per intent
• Controlled implementation and QA

(If you skip intents and jump straight to boosting, you’ll boost the wrong products for the wrong searches.)

Instead of “boost best sellers globally,” use this method:

These rules keep search trustworthy while still increasing sales:

1. Boost only for “commercial intent” queries Head terms and category queries benefit most (e.g., “flag”, “state flag”, “3x5 flag”). Do not boost for precise, technical queries where shoppers expect exact matching.
2. Never boost a product that doesn’t actually satisfy the query If you must “force” it, it’s the wrong product for that intent.
3. Use small hero sets (3–10), not 50 products Over-boosting creates randomness and reduces perceived relevance.
4. Boost availability-aware items only Shopify’s behavior around availability helps here, but you should still avoid hero sets with unstable inventory.
5. Protect exact-match and identifier searches SKU/UPC/model-number searches should return the exact product first (this is a trust moment). If your boosts interfere, you will increase drop-offs.
6. Create a “Must-Win Query List” and test it weekly Boost changes should never regress must-win queries. This is your QA safety net.
7. Treat boosts as an overlay, not the engine the engine is still: intent map + keyword dictionary + clean product data.

Below is a practical workflow that fits your overall search improvement framework.

Mistake 1: Boosting based on margin only

Short-term gains, long-term trust loss.

Mistake 2: Boosting “new arrivals” for everything

New arrivals are not always what a high-intent shopper wants.

Mistake 3: Ignoring synonyms and variants

If customers can’t reach the right intent cluster, boosts won’t help. Shopify’s Search & Discovery explicitly highlights synonym groups as part of shaping results.

If your store search is hurting conversions, the solution usually isn’t “one tweak”, it’s the right storefront foundation + a growth system you can run consistently. At Webgarh, we help Shopify and Shopify Plus brands improve discovery, conversion and scalability through two proven service tracks:

• If your theme, search UX, filters, collections and performance are limiting results, explore our end-to-end storefront improvements and replatforming capabilities.
  Learn more: Storefront Development & Replatforming
• If you want a structured roadmap for improving traffic, conversion, retention and measurable growth our Build–Grow–Scale model organizes execution across the full ecommerce lifecycle.
  Learn more: Build–Grow–Scale Model

If you want search improvements that scale (and don’t regress), follow our complete framework: