Federated site search for a UK water retailer
A single, fast site search that unifies the website and the retailer's ServiceNow content in one relevance-ranked result set — powered by Algolia and a custom indexer.
Content silos are a customer's problem, not just an IT one. By indexing the website and ServiceNow into a single search, we made the boundary between the two invisible to the person looking for an answer.
This client is a UK water retailer whose customer-facing answers live in two very different systems: marketing and product pages on their WordPress website, and a large body of support and knowledge content in ServiceNow. Searching each separately meant customers had to know — or guess — which system held what they were looking for.
We unified the two behind a single search. Algolia powers the experience, and a custom indexer we built pushes the client's ServiceNow content into the same Algolia index as the website, normalised and kept in sync. Every query now returns web pages and ServiceNow content together in one relevance-ranked result set.
Our customers used to have to know whether an answer was on the website or in our help content. Now they just search once and it's there.
A multi-stage approach.
Discovery
We mapped where the retailer's answers actually lived — marketing and product content in WordPress, support and knowledge content in ServiceNow — and the moments customers were bouncing between them or giving up.
One index, two sources
We chose Algolia for fast, typo-tolerant search and designed a single index that could hold both content types, with a shared schema so results rank together on merit.
Custom ServiceNow indexer
We built an indexer that pulls the client's ServiceNow content, normalises it to the shared schema, and pushes it into Algolia alongside the website content — keeping the index in sync as content changes.
Unified search experience
We wired the front end to the combined index, so a single search-as-you-type box returns web pages and ServiceNow content side by side in one relevance-ranked list.
What changed.
One search, both systems
Customers search once and get results from the website and ServiceNow together — no more guessing which system holds the answer.
Ranked on merit
Because both sources sit in one index with a shared schema, results are ranked by relevance across the lot, not siloed by system.
A custom indexer, not a bolt-on
We wrote the ServiceNow indexer ourselves, so exactly the right content is surfaced, normalised and kept in sync — not whatever an off-the-shelf connector happened to expose.
Fast and forgiving
Algolia gives instant, typo-tolerant search-as-you-type, so customers find the answer even when they don't spell it exactly right.
Platforms on this project
Platforms: WordPress
Answers scattered across systems?
If your content lives in more than one platform, we'll build a single search that unifies it — so your customers find what they need without knowing where it lives.