Sorry but the search function is a bit poor when I try to search for things.
I am searching for cases.
I am offered “Cases for RaspberryPi” and click it.
This is what I’m given.
It isn’t I said Raspberry Pi computers.
The “offer” was given to me CASES FOR RASPBERRY PI.
So it isn’t that I simply entered “Raspberry Pi”
Hi Andrew
“A bit poor” would be an understatement.
This topic came up some time ago and I don’t think it got much in the way of response.
I just tried to find that thread using the Forum search but failed miserably.
Might be the way I am using it so will have to give it the benefit of doubt but I tried several different ways of getting a result for “Core shop search engine”, no joy.
Cheers Bob
It might be the way you hold your mouth that does it.???
I have found that adding an extra keyword to the search makes the search more general, when I expected it to be more specific - ie it seems to be doing an OR between each keyword, rather than an AND.
Hi Donald
Murphy’s Law I think. Or maybe Harr’s who thinks Murphy is a super optimist.
Could be you need to put a “+” between each search term. I have not tried that.
Then you need to know exactly how Core has described the item you are looking for.
Cheers Bob
Hi Donald
Just did a bit of an experiment.
I searched the shop with +raspberry pi cases" and came up with the same number of hits as you.
Then raspberry + pi + cases"and got 1459 hits. Worse.
Then a Brainwave. I removed the spaces either side of the “+” signs. Would you believe 0 (yes zero) hits.
I don’t really know how you are supposed to search now, particularly if you don’t have a decent starting point.
Maybe Core could do one of their famous Tutorials on how to search their inventory a bit more economically. That is find pertinent products without having to wade through pages of completely unrelated items so you don’t miss what you want buried somewhere in the middle of all this.
What I personally do if i find this store too frustrating is go elsewhere to somewhere like Element 14 who have quite a good filtering system. If I can find something that will do the job I want I can at least get a part number so can do a general search on that actual number. Sometimes Core will have it or something similar but if not other sources might likely come up.
Cheers Bob
The RUB for me is that I entered case in the search field.
Nothing else.
I was OFFERED the raspberrypi case option and took it.
Look at pictures.
Why was I given a worse search term than the one I was entering?
I am simply pointing out the problem as I see it.
Hi Andrew
I think the “problem” has been around for a long time.
I tried with no success to find the previous thread regarding this “problem”. I could be wrong But I don’t think Core responded at all. If this in incorrect I apologise. As time seems to zip along rapidly these days I would not even hazard a guess as to approx time period this was.
In reality this sort of thing is pretty frustrating all over.
In my working life, particularly as a contractor, I had contact with many stores and inventory search systems. Of course some are better than others, ranging to the pretty useless to amazing. One I remember had about 5 different ways of describing an M5 stainless steel flat washer. This meant that there could be 5 occurrences of the same thing under 5 different stock numbers in the store. This came up when a project was bing provisioned when a 5mm S/St screw was flagged as “out of stock” when actually some 5000 were available with a different stock number, all because there were multiple descriptions for the same item.
My long term employer (pre contractor days) had what seemed to be a pretty good system but they had a couple of good clerks that made sure this multiple description business did not happen. The first few numbers in the stock number system actually meant something. They had a laid down description and classing system that had to be adhered to so throughout the factory pretty much everyone was on the same page.
This was pretty frustrating as a contractor every time I changed projects there was a new employer and mostly a new store and search system. But you get to learn them after a while as there usually always someone to show you before you go completely mad. But in this case unfortunately there does not seem to be anyone who knows enough about it to explain to us mere mortals just how the whole thing works. Or no one that will take it on.
Cheers Bob
Wow, now I am seeing a much improved search engine interface !
… of course, Graham may just be doing some testing out of business hours and it goes back by monday morning … but it’s great that search is getting some love 
Hey Everyone.
It’s great when customers and companies communicate 
Makes it better for both of us.
I also find CE’s search doesn’t always return the results I expect.
Search is really hard.
Especially when you’re inventory has large categories that are similar but not interchangeable. I do not envy whoever has to maintain the elastic search tree at CE.
Be honest in chat, but also be nice 
Hey, @Andrew41918 and everyone,
ElasticSearch (what we used) was innovative at the time, and you are right, it could be way better in 2026.
We have been building our new ERP system behind the scenes and are happy to report that it is now appearing in customer-facing experiences as well.
An internal project named Omnisearch (not related to other projects of that name) went live over the weekend; you should see a noticeable uplift in results. It has:
Some caveats:
Behind the scenes, cache is managed dynamically. This is MVP (products + parameters to start with), and we’ll fold in guides, etc soon. I am focused on parameters for the next little bit, though as those changes push, the system ought to self-heal the cache for the searches that matter.
If you run into issues, please let me know here!
Just to unpack Omnisearch features:
And here comes the hair-raising stuff:
Work in progress. Related search terms are currently a gap. I chose not to seed those. We’ll collect that data over the next couple of weeks, and it’s also a test case for the cache engine.
There is a quirk going from forum header search to the shop search (will go through legacy search first unless cached); have a fix pegged for this afternoon.
And you can get our latest projects and tips straight away by following us on:
