# Troubleshooting Product Discovery

> Audit the path from a shopper’s words to the visible product list. Reproduce the problem with an exact query, category, and filter combination, then check catalog data, search rules, and the interface in that order.

- Type: Merchant guide
- Level: Intermediate
- Reading time: About 4 minutes
- Audience: Written for store owners, builders, and designers refining high-performance ecommerce stores.
- Last updated: 2026-11-04
- Canonical page: https://academy.getzenbasket.com/merchant-questions/troubleshooting-product-discovery/
- Part of: [Merchant Questions](https://academy.getzenbasket.com/merchant-questions/) on ZenBasket Academy

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## What you need to know

### Why is a product missing or irrelevant?

Search the exact product name and a common alternate phrase. Check whether the item is published, in the right category, and marked with the right attributes, such as size. If the source data is correct, check indexing and search weighting.

### Why are filter counts wrong?

A variant may be counted as a separate item, a stock flag may be stale, or counts may not recalculate after another choice. Record the selected filters, expected matches, and actual matches so your team can fix the specific rule.

### Why do shoppers abandon results?

A shopper might see irrelevant items, too few choices, unclear prices or results that load poorly on a phone. Watch a few real searches and check whether shoppers click products and can recover from a zero-result page before blaming one metric.

### A simple check to try

Reproduce one missing-product query and one wrong filter count. Record the exact input, device, expected item, actual result, and confirmed cause.

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## Frequently asked questions

### What is a practical audit checklist?

Test exact names, common synonyms, misspellings, zero results, filters, sorting, mobile controls, and recommendations. Record the expected result, actual result, and owner of each fix.

### Which report should I check first?

Begin with the report tied to the reproduced problem, then verify the affected products and live customer path.

## Related articles

- **Ecommerce Search Metrics and Demand**
- **Ecommerce Search Relevance and Ranking**
- [ZenBasket Build Guide](https://help.getzenbasket.com/zenbasket-builder/)