Getting Started with AACSearch: Add Search in 10 Minutes

Why Store Search is Broken (and How to Fix It Fast)

If you've priced managed search providers for a mid-traffic e-commerce site, you know the sticker shock. At 100M searches per month you're looking at enterprise contracts. traditional search backends is free but carries a hidden cost: a dedicated ops engineer who does nothing but manage clusters, handle memory pressure, and debug split-brain events.

There's a better path. AACSearch is a fully managed search-as-a-service — you get API keys, multi-tenancy, analytics, and a dashboard while we handle everything underneath. No servers, no configuration files, no maintenance windows.

This guide walks through adding AACSearch to your project from zero to first search result in under 10 minutes.

What You'll Need

An AACSearch account (free tier covers up to 10,000 documents)
A product catalog — CSV, JSON, or a live PrestaShop / Bitrix / WooCommerce store
10 minutes

Step 1: Create Your Search Index

After signing up, you land on the dashboard. Click New Index and give it a name (e.g., products). AACSearch will provision a search index for your organization automatically — no server selection, no node sizing, no configuration files.

You'll see your index appear with a status of Active within seconds.

Step 2: Connect Your Data Source

Option A: Upload a CSV or JSON file

Go to Import → Upload File. AACSearch infers field types automatically from your data. For a standard product catalog, it detects name, price, description, category, and sku fields without any manual schema definition.

Upload a file with 1,000 products. You'll see the ingest progress in real time — typically under 10 seconds for 1,000 documents.

Option B: Connect via CMS Connector

If you're running PrestaShop, Bitrix, or WooCommerce, install the native connector module:

PrestaShop: Admin → Module Manager → search "AACSearch" → Install
Bitrix: Marketplace → AACSearch → Install
WooCommerce: Plugins → Add New → search "AACSearch" → Install

In your AACSearch dashboard, go to Connectors → New Connector Token. Copy the token and paste it into the module settings in your CMS. Click Test Connection — you should see a green confirmation with your index name and document count.

Trigger a Full Sync. The connector exports your entire product catalog, enqueues it, and pushes it to the index. For a 50,000-product catalog, expect about 2–3 minutes.

Step 3: Test Search in the Playground

In the dashboard, open the Playground tab. Type a product name or partial SKU. You'll see:

Ranked results with highlighted matches
Response time in milliseconds (typically 10–30ms)
Raw JSON output for debugging

Try a typo — AACSearch's built-in fuzzy matching means iphne still returns iPhone results.

Step 4: Embed the Widget

Go to Widget and copy the embed snippet. It looks like this:

<script
	src="https://app.AACSearch.com/api/widget/widget.js"
	data-index-id="YOUR_INDEX_ID"
	data-api-key="YOUR_SEARCH_KEY"
	data-locale="en"
	async
></script>

Paste this into your store's <head> or before </body>. The widget renders a search button that opens a full-screen search overlay — no additional CSS or JavaScript required.

It works in Shadow DOM, so your store's styles don't conflict with the widget's appearance.

Step 5: Verify in Production

Open your store in an incognito window and click the search button. Type a product name. You should see instant results appearing as you type — no full page reload, no waiting.

Congratulations. You now have production-grade full-text search.

What's Happening Under the Hood

When you type a character, the widget sends a query to AACSearch's public search endpoint authenticated with a read-only API key. The query hits your AACSearch index, returns ranked results with typo tolerance and prefix matching, and renders them in the overlay — all in under 50ms.

Your product updates sync automatically. When you change a price or add a new product in your CMS, the connector picks up the delta and pushes it to the index within minutes.

What You Get Out of the Box

Multi-tenancy — separate indexes per organization or customer
Scoped search tokens — narrow search results to a user's own data without a backend round-trip
Analytics dashboard — top queries, zero-result rates, click-through rate
API key management — create, rotate, and revoke search keys from the dashboard
CMS connectors — sync products from PrestaShop, Bitrix, or WooCommerce automatically

Next Steps

Synonyms: Add "phone → smartphone, mobile" in the Relevance tab to capture intent variations
Curations: Pin specific products to appear first for high-value queries
Analytics: After a week of traffic, check the Top Queries and Zero Results reports to find gaps

Search is now running. The rest is optimization.

Ready to get started? Sign up for AACSearch — free, no credit card required →