Search Page
Your search page lives at /opensolr-search and is accessible to all visitors. Here's everything that appears on it and how it works.
The search box
The search box is sticky — it stays at the top of the page as visitors scroll through results. It includes:
- A text input where visitors type their query
- A search button to submit
- A clear button (X) that appears when there's a query — click it to reset the search
Searches use GET requests, so every search result page has a unique URL that can be bookmarked or shared (e.g., /opensolr-search?q=solr+hosting).
Content tabs
If you enabled "Include attached files" in your content type settings, two tabs appear inside the search box:
- Web — shows only web pages (HTML content)
- Documents — shows only files (PDFs, DOCX, etc.)
Switching between tabs preserves your search query and all active filters.
Two-column layout
Search results use a two-column layout on desktop:
- Left sidebar — faceted filters for narrowing results, including list facets, hierarchical drill-down navigation, numeric sliders with thousands separators, and date range pickers
- Right column — the actual search results
On mobile, the sidebar collapses and a Filters toggle button appears to show/hide it.
Active filters bar
When you select any facet filter, an active filters bar appears below the search box. Each active filter shows as a removable pill — click the X on a pill to remove that filter. A "Clear all" link removes all filters at once. Numeric values in pills display with thousands separators for readability (e.g., "Price from: 9,507.99").
Search results
Each result shows:
- Title — linked to the original page
- URL — shown in gray, smartly truncated for long paths (e.g.,
example.com/blog/really-long...article-title) - Snippet — a text excerpt with search terms highlighted in yellow (if highlighting is enabled)
- Date — when the content was published
- Thumbnail — the page's Open Graph image, if available and thumbnails are enabled
- Metadata badges — price, content type, language, or sentiment when available
Sorting
A dropdown at the top of results lets visitors sort by:
- Relevance (default) — best matches first, based on your tuning settings
- Recent — newest content first
- Price — lowest price first (only appears if price data exists)
Fresh Results Bias
Beside the sort controls there is a Fresh toggle, off by default. With it on, every result's score is multiplied by a recency curve on the document's creation_date — full weight for something published today, about half after a year — so newer documents climb the ranking.
It re-orders and never filters. The hit count is identical either way, nothing older becomes unreachable, and a document with no date keeps its place instead of being pushed to the bottom. That is what makes it different from a date filter, which removes results outright.
The choice belongs to the visitor rather than to whoever configured the site: the same index answers “the most relevant thing” and “the most relevant recent thing” depending on which is asked for. It travels in the URL as fresh_bias=1, so the search can be bookmarked and shared, and it survives paging, facet clicks and a new query. It applies to keyword, vector and hybrid ranking alike, because the boost wraps the final score rather than one half of it. AI Hints answers from the same ranking the visitor is looking at.
Spellcheck
When enabled in Search Display settings, the search page shows a "Did you mean: ..." suggestion when a query has possible typos or returns very few results. Clicking the suggestion re-runs the search with the corrected query.
AI Hints
When enabled, a purple "AI Hints" button appears above results (available on vector-enabled plans). See the AI Features page for details.
Pagination
Two pagination modes are available (configurable in Search Display):
Numbered Pages
Classic pagination with Previous/Next buttons and page numbers. Each page has a unique URL.
Infinite Scroll
New results load automatically as visitors scroll down. No clicking needed. A "Load more" button serves as fallback.
Browse mode
By default, the search page shows nothing until someone types a query. If you enable Browse Mode in Search Display, the page shows all results on load — visitors can browse and filter with facets without typing anything.
Admin-only features
If you're logged in as an admin with the "Administer Opensolr Search" permission, you'll see extra controls on each search result:
- PIN button — pin this result to the top for the current search query
- EXCLUDE button — hide this result from the current search query
- Facet drag handles — reorder facet groups in the sidebar by dragging
See Query Elevation for details on pinning and excluding.
Drupal core search redirect
The module automatically redirects Drupal's built-in search forms to /opensolr-search. If your theme has a search block or search form, visitors are sent to the Opensolr search page when they submit it.