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User Generated Suggestions

User Generated Suggestions (UGS) save the phrases your visitors search successfully into a list of their own — specific, unusual wording like movies with chris hemsworth that you’d never think to write.

  • UGS fills a list; Suggestions is the as-you-type API that shows it. Point suggest at the filled list.
  • Capture rules control what is kept, so typos, dead ends and single letters are not.
1

Turn real searches into autocomplete

User Generated Suggestions turn your users’ real searches into an autocomplete source. No hand-authoring — long-tail phrases like “movies with chris hemsworth” get captured because someone already searched them successfully. Turn it on from a source list’s Options → Enable U.G.S.

The Enable U.G.S option in a list’s Options menu
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Set the capture rules

Point captured terms at a target list, then set the capture rules: a minimum result count (skip queries that found nothing), a minimum length (skip tiny fragments), whether new terms go live immediately or wait for moderation, and optionally require a click so only terms that led somewhere useful are kept. The target is an ordinary list — review or edit its terms, then serve them as typeahead through the suggest API.

The U.G.S configuration dialog

Auto-plays · use Back / Next to step through at your own pace.

Turn it on
  1. Open the source list (the one your users search) and choose Options → Enable U.G.S.
  2. Pick a target list: saved phrases are stored there as ordinary records.
  3. Set the capture rules (below) and save. Phrases that pass the rules are added to the target list once a week, and from past searches as soon as capture is switched on.
The Enable User Generated Suggestions dialog with target list and capture-rule fields
Or turn it on from the API
POST https://api.searchstack.dev/ugs/acme/movies
  • Body: target_list_name, minimum_result_count, minimum_characters, is_active, and optionally require_click, minimum_occurrences and lookback_days — how many times a phrase must have been searched, over how many days (defaults 3 and 30; at most 365 days). The console calls them Minimum searches and Within days.
  • PUT the same route changes any rule (send only what changes); DELETE stops capture and leaves the phrases already captured where they are.
  • Agents get the same three as MCP tools: ugs_create, ugs_edit, ugs_delete.
  • Read the rules back from the list itself — suggestion_target on the list.
How it works
  1. A visitor searches the source list, directly or through a group, and the query passes your capture rules.
  2. The query text is written as a new record into the target list.
  3. You show that list through the suggest API — directly, or mixed into a group. Someone types “underr” and sees “underrated 90s thrillers”.
Capture rules
RuleWhat it does
Minimum result countOnly save a query that returned at least this many results: a phrase that found nothing is a dead end, not a suggestion.
Minimum lengthIgnore very short fragments that make poor suggestions.
Capture suggestions (is_active)On: phrases that pass the rules are added every Sunday at 04:00 UTC and are live in suggest at once — there is no review step. Switching it on also adds phrases from up to 365 days of the list’s past searches. Off: nothing is captured.
Require clickOnly keep a phrase if the user clicked a result. Captures nothing unless your site records clicks. Only list-route clicks are read: for a phrase searched through a group, send the click to the list route with the hit’s list and the group search’s query_id; those clicks count in the list’s report, not the group’s.
  • A phrase counts every search, not every visitor, so one visitor repeating a search can meet minimum_occurrences. On a public site, raise it.
  • Ask questions count as searches, so a question asked often enough is captured like any other phrase.

The target is an ordinary list: review, edit or delete saved phrases in the console, and the usual versioning and contributor rules hold.

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