How Search Works on CADdetails.com

Our new search experience is designed to help you find the most relevant products quickly and easily — even if your search isn’t perfect. Here’s a simple breakdown of how it works.

Fast, Up-to-Date Results

When you search on CADdetails.com, you’re not searching the live database directly. Instead, we use a specialized system that creates a fast, optimized “search index.”

• This index is like a snapshot of all products and companies

• It’s updated approximately every 3 hours

• Any changes to listings will appear in search within a few hours

What this means for you: Search is fast, and results stay up to date without delays.

Search Understands What You Mean

Our search is designed to be flexible and forgiving. It processes your query to match results more naturally.

For example, it automatically:

• Treats uppercase and lowercase the same (“Window” = “window”)

• Matches singular and plural forms (“door” = “doors”)

• Recognizes word variations (“windowed” → “window”)

• Breaks phrases into individual searchable words

What this means for you: You don’t need perfect spelling or exact wording to get good results.

Results Are Ranked by Relevance

When you search, each result is scored based on how well it matches your query.

For example, searching “aluminum windows”:

• Matches both “aluminum” and “windows” separately

• Combines those matches into a total relevance score

Things that improve a result’s ranking:

• The keyword appears multiple times

• The product description is focused and specific

• The term is more unique (not used everywhere)

What this means for you: The most relevant and specific products appear first.

Some Fields Matter More Than Others

Not all matches are equal. A match in a product name is more important than one in a company name.

To reflect this, we prioritize certain fields:

• Highest priority: Listing name, product name

• Medium priority: Categories, product types, keywords

• Lower priority: Company name, synonyms

What this means for you: Products that directly match your search (by name or type) will rank higher than indirect matches.

Exact Phrases Get Priority

If your full search phrase appears exactly in a product, it gets a major boost.

For example:

• A product named “Aluminum Windows” ranks higher than one that only partially matches those words

The system also looks for:

• Exact phrases

• Two-word combinations

• Three-word groupings

What this means for you: The closer a product matches your full search intent, the higher it appears.

Balanced Results Across Companies

To keep results fair and useful, we limit how much one company can dominate the page.

• If multiple products from the same company appear, each additional one gets a small ranking penalty

• This penalty is capped, so relevant results still show

What this means for you: You’ll see a wider variety of companies — not just one brand taking over the results.

Browsing Without a Search Term

If you apply filters without typing a search:

• All matching products are equally relevant

• Results are shown in a randomized order

To keep things consistent:

• The order stays the same during your session

• It only resets when your session ends. User sessions expire in approximately 30 minutes. Signing out also ends a user session.

What this means for you: You get a fair and varied browsing experience without results constantly changing.

Featured Products

You may see featured products at the top of results (up to 4 at a time).

How they’re selected depends on what you’re doing:

• With a search query: Matches sponsored keywords

• With filters only: Based on category or keywords

• No search or filters: Pulled from featured placements

Featured results are:

• Selected from eligible products

• Randomized, but consistent during your session

What this means for you: Featured products are relevant to your search or browsing context, not random ads.

One Unified Search Experience

Search and Spotlight are now combined into a single experience.

• You see results at the product level

• Behind the scenes, search still understands specific asset types (CAD, BIM, 3D, Specs)

What this means for you: A cleaner interface with the same powerful filtering and precision.

In Summary

CADdetails.com search is built to be:

• Fast (optimized index)

• Flexible (understands variations in language)

• Relevant (smart ranking and phrase matching)

• Fair (balanced across companies)

• Consistent (stable browsing experience)