Development / CMS
Sitecore Search with XM Cloud step-by-step
SSaurav Kr.1 Min Read
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Here’s a step-by-step to integrate Sitecore Search with XM Cloud for AI-powered search and content discovery on a headless site:
- Web Crawler: Crawl XM Cloud-rendered pages.- API Crawler: Pull content via XM Cloud Delivery API. - Ingestion API: Push structured content directly.
Transform XM Cloud experiences with AI-powered search, personalized results, intelligent recommendations, and faster content discovery across your headless website.
- Get XM Cloud Delivery API endpoint (GraphQL or REST). - Configure connector in Sitecore Search to fetch content.
- Push content from XM Cloud to Sitecore Search via POST requests.
For a Next.js headless site:
npm install @sitecore-search/react
Create a searchClient.js file:
import { createClient } from '@sitecore-search/react'; export const searchClient = createClient({
apiKey: process.env.SITECORESEARCHAPI_KEY,
endpoint: 'https://api.sitecoresearch.com',
});
Add your API key in .env.local: SITECORE_SEARCH_API_KEY=your-api-key
Example in SearchPage.js:
import { createClient } from '@sitecore-search/react'; export const searchClient = createClient({
apiKey: process.env.SITECORESEARCHAPI_KEY,
endpoint: 'https://api.sitecoresearch.com',
});
const recommendations = await searchClient.getRecommendations({
userId: 'anonymous',
limit: 5,
});Happy Coding!
Sitecore Search with XM Cloud combines Sitecore's headless content platform with a configurable search service that indexes content and delivers search results, recommendations, and personalized discovery experiences to websites and applications.
Sitecore Search can index content from XM Cloud-rendered websites or connected content sources, then expose search experiences through APIs and SDKs. Developers can use the indexed content to build search results, facets, recommendations, and personalized experiences.
The general process includes configuring a Sitecore Search domain, creating a content source, indexing XM Cloud content, defining attributes and search configuration, creating widgets, and integrating search into the front-end application using the appropriate Sitecore SDK.
Yes. Sitecore Search can be integrated into Next.js applications. Current Sitecore documentation provides guidance for building search experiences in both the Next.js Pages Router and App Router.
Depending on the implementation, Sitecore Search can work with crawled web content, structured data sources, and content ingestion methods. The source should provide searchable content that can be mapped to entities and attributes.
A Sitecore Search widget is a configurable component that delivers search-related content or experiences to an application. Widgets can support search results, recommendations, previews, banners, questions and answers, and other configured experiences.
Yes. Sitecore Search can support personalized and contextual search experiences when configured with the appropriate data, rules, context, and search features.
Yes. Sitecore Search supports recommendation experiences that can help surface relevant content based on configured entities, widgets, visitor context, and search behavior.
The best SDK depends on the application architecture. Current Sitecore guidance recommends the Cloud SDK for Sitecore Search functionality in JSS Next.js and JSS Angular applications connected to XM Cloud, while the Search JS SDK for React supports React-based search integrations.
Sitecore Search can help enterprises improve content discovery by combining indexed content with configurable search experiences, filters, recommendations, personalization, and scalable front-end integrations.
