Test your search with what people actually type
You built search. You tested it with the product names from your database. Everything returned perfectly. Then real users started typing, and half their queries came back empty.
The problem isn't your search engine. It's that you tested with your vocabulary, not theirs.
Start with your actual search logs
If your site already has search, pull the query log. Look at what returned zero results. Look at what people typed that you'd never type. Someone searched "blue pants" when you call them "azure trousers." Someone typed "refund" when your policy page is titled "Returns & Exchanges."
Those failed queries are your test cases. If you don't have logs yet, you're guessing. Launch with basic search, collect a week of real queries, then fix what broke.
Common vocabulary isn't your vocabulary
You know your content model. You know that blog posts live in "Insights" and case studies live in "Work." Users don't know that. They type "examples" and "articles" because that's what those things are called everywhere else.
Your search needs to handle both. Either make sure your content includes the common terms in body copy, or configure your search to treat "articles" as a synonym for your "Insights" content type. Most search tools support basic synonym mapping. Use it.
Plurals and verb forms matter
You have a page titled "Scheduling Content for Publication." Someone types "schedule content." Someone else types "scheduled posts." If those return nothing, your search is too literal.
Stemming helps — it reduces words to their root form so "schedule," "scheduling," and "scheduled" all match. Most search engines support it. Turn it on. Test with your actual page titles and likely variations.
Typos happen more than you think
People type "seach" and "serch" and "sarch." If your search doesn't handle small typos, you're losing queries. Fuzzy matching or edit-distance tolerance catches most of this. Set it to allow one or two character differences for words over four letters.
Don't go overboard. Too much tolerance and "cart" starts matching "cat" and "art." Test with realistic typos from your logs, not theoretical edge cases.
Category names are search terms too
If you organized your site into sections, users will search for those section names. They'll type "craft" to find everything in your craft category. They'll type "production" because they saw it in your nav.
Make sure category and tag names are searchable fields. If someone types the name of a category, show them that category page in results, or show them posts from that category. Don't make them dig through nav to find what they already named.
Test with questions, not keywords
Some users type full questions: "how do I add alt text" or "what is a content model." If your search only looks for exact phrase matches, these fail unless you happened to write that exact sentence.
Your search should break questions into terms and match on the meaningful words. "add alt text" should surface your alt text post. "content model" should find posts about defining content types.
Some engines need configuration to ignore common question words ("how," "what," "is"). Others handle it automatically. Either way, test with questions from your actual users.
Keep a running list of gaps
Every time someone searches for something you don't have content for, write it down. When the same term shows up five times, you've found a content gap. Either create that page or adjust your existing content to include the term people are using.
Search logs tell you what your audience wants in their words. Ignoring that because you prefer different terminology is a choice, but it's not a smart one.