Have you ever wondered how SnapEDA’s search engine ranks the components in its search results? Here we explain how our search engine works and what you can do to get your components to appear at the top of the search results so they get designed-in more frequently.
When using SnapEDA’s search engine, you’ll find that a simple query such as “dc dc converter” yields 20K+ search results, which are spread across multiple pages. However, our data shows that most users don’t go past the first 2-3 pages of results, meaning that there are thousands of components generated for every search query but are left unnoticed by users.
You might be wondering: “What if an engineer is just looking for a specific part? He wouldn’t search through hundreds of results, but would simply select the one that appears at the top.” And that’s true. However, you may be surprised to learn that 35% of our downloads on SnapEDA come from what we call a “discovery search.” This describes engineers searching for keywords such as “usb type c” or “pin header 20 positions” and discovering a component when browsing on SnapEDA, as opposed to an exact part number.
These types of general keyword searches usually yield thousands of results, resulting in multiple pages for engineers to sift through. Our data also shows that components that appear in the first three pages get designed in 340% more frequently, so it’s critical that component suppliers consider their ranking.
Let’s take a look at some of the factors that affect search rankings.
First of all, it’s important to understand that SnapEDA’s rankings are totally organic. Component suppliers can’t buy their way to better rankings, but there are some things that our algorithm considers when ranking results that can help to achieve a higher ranking.
As any good search engine should, we focus first on the relevance of the results to the query entered. This means that component suppliers should ensure their products have good descriptions and specifications available on SnapEDA, as these are key inputs required to show a relevant result showing your products based on the user’s query.
SnapEDA is a search engine for finding CAD models. Naturally, the availability of these CAD models is a crucial factor we consider when ranking components in our search results.
Although providing high quality and reliable CAD models is SnapEDA’s core competency, there are also a number of different resources available to download that we provide to our engineering community that we know are essential to support them in their design process. Since our motivation is to provide everything electronic engineers need to innovate faster, these resources are also considered when ranking components in our search engine.
We had previously shown how providing ECAD & MCAD is essential for increasing the chances of a component being designed-in. In fact, our users have frequently asked in recent surveys for a ECAD+MCAD integration when downloading the models. This restates the fact that the availability of these 3D models should be considered to rank up the components when browsing on SnapEDA.
This, along with the availability of other resources like datasheets and simulation models, are also included in our search engine algorithm as factors that are important and that engineers are looking for when designing electronics.
Since engineers are actively designing with SnapEDA, it only makes sense that the products we recommend are available in the supply chain. SnapEDA’s search engine also ranks components that have inventory available at top distributors like Digi-Key, Mouser, Onlinecomponents, and Arrow higher up in our results.
Finally, SnapEDA does not only support the design process of engineers, but also to provide resources to continue this process well into the prototyping and production phases of a design. For this reason, we (slightly) boost parts that have samples available to engineers in our search engine. This allows engineers to evaluate the component before they design it in.
We hope this introduction to our search engine has been helpful. We are constantly refining our search algorithm, and we will continue to share updates as we continue to refine it further.
Related article:
Availability of free sample requests has a positive impact on design-in of components.
Offering free samples to engineers on SnapEDA
If you want to offer free samples of your components to the largest community of professional engineers selecting and designing-in parts, take a look at our Media Kit.
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