The dropdown looks polished and conversion still does not move. That is when people start comparing notes — on Reddit, in engineering Slack, in vendor evals. The comments usually split in two: one camp wants faster prefix matching; the other wants the bar to behave like a merchandiser.
The second camp is right for ecommerce. A search suggestions API should return ranked products, categories, and collections while the query is still half-typed. Phrase completion is a feature, not the product. The longer write-up is what a search suggestions API should do.
Autocomplete vs search suggestions — the naming mix-up
Threads use autocomplete API, autosuggest API, and search suggestions API as synonyms. They are not. Autocomplete finishes text. A search suggestions API ranks the next useful destination. If you only need SKU prefix matching, a cheap typeahead library wins. If the bar has to recover “waterprof boots” and send someone to a product, you need suggestions, not completion.
That is why we keep a separate autocomplete API page and this suggestions page: same search bar, different job.
What a production suggestions endpoint should return
- Typed query, normalized query, and a confidence that the rewrite is safe to show.
- Mixed result types: products, categories, collections, maybe a merchandised pin.
- Enough structured fields for a theme or an agent to render without a second fetch.
- Latency that still feels like typing, including on mobile.
If a vendor demo only shows string lists, you are looking at autocomplete. Ask for the payload a storefront actually binds to.
Why “just use the search engine’s suggest” falls over
Algolia, Typesense, Elasticsearch, and Meilisearch all ship some form of suggest. The usual advice is to “just enable it.” That works until merchandising, synonyms, and multi-backend routing show up. A layer in front — the model in Bring Your Own Search — lets you keep the index and still control what the bar is allowed to say.
A better next step than another thread
Read the search suggestions API guide, then the autocomplete API checklist. If you want those endpoints on the catalog you already run, join the SuggestAPI waitlist.