Hi @simondb,
Thanks for your message!
I tested this on your site and saw the same thing — searching for full product codes like BE890 works well, but number-only searches (like 890) don’t always return results. Interestingly, similar codes like BE769 do show up when searching by number alone.
Looking at both pages, I noticed that the BE769 product includes the number 769 on its own line in the content — possibly styled to appear subtly. That seems to help Jetpack Search match it when someone searches using just the number.
I’ve shared this with the team to confirm whether that behavior is expected or not. In the meantime, if you’d like number-only searches to work more consistently, you might consider adding the number separately in the product content, either visibly or styled to match your layout.
Let me know if you’d like help testing that approach — happy to assist!
(Internal ref: JP Search Slack)
Hi, thanks for your response. Yes, the 769 was added manually by myself to test, and hidden to blend into the background.
It isn’t the ideal way to force the search to pull pages up though, really. Please let me know what the team say whenever they get back to you.
Thanks again!
Hi @simondb,
Thanks for your patience!
I checked in with our developers, and they confirmed that the behavior you’re seeing is expected. Jetpack Search treats BE890 as a single word, so searching just for “890” won’t match it—unless that number also appears separately in the content (like you did with 769).
It doesn’t necessarily have to be in its own paragraph, but the number needs to be a standalone word somewhere on the page. For example, writing “BE 890” with a space would allow “890” to match as well.
If you’d prefer not to add the number visibly to the content, another option is to use a custom meta field that’s included in search — like jetpack-search-meta0. You could add additional keywords (such as the numeric part of a code) there to help make those matches work. You can read more about that option here:
https://jetpack.com/support/search/frequently-asked-questions/
I hope this helps, but if you have other questions, let us know.
Thanks Alin – we tried adding the custom meta previously, but via an ACF field but that had no effect as far as I could see. Should they work too or not? Or does it have to be WordPress’ built in custom fields which I believe get disabled if ACF is installed?
Hey @simondb – I’m not 100% sure if the WordPress’ built in custom fields get disabled if ACF is installed but to test this, could you please temporarily disable ACF and then follow the steps as mentioned here to check if it works for you. You can replace custom_field_to_be_indexed with your actual custom meta field key.
Hey @simondb,
Do you have updates about that, do you still need help? We usually close inactive threads after one week of no movement, but we want to make sure we’re all set before marking it as solved. Thanks!
Hi! Yes thanks, we managed to get the custom meta fields working in the end.
Hi @simondb,
Great to hear that you managed to get the custom meta fields working!
That said, I’m marking this thread as resolved for now, but feel free to reach out anytime if you need help.
Best!
