Curator rule / best bets is not working or displaying

This article provides information on debugging issues that occur when using curator or best bets.

Most issues with curator will be a result of:

  • curator rules that have not been published

  • trigger terms not matching the query terms

  • promote/remove URL actions operating on a URL that isn’t in the result set

  • templates that are not configured to display the curator exhibits/best bets

Check the triggers

If you find a curator rule is not triggering as expected, carefully check the trigger configuration. Things to watch out for include:

  • Be careful to note the match type as this affects how the keywords are considered for the trigger match

  • Define standard triggers in lowercase (the triggers are currently case-sensitive by default)

  • For regular expression based triggers carefully check the pattern. Ensure that the pattern is configured to be case-insensitive (prefixed with (?i))

Tutorial: Promote URL or remove URL action is not working

Before you start: check to ensure that the query isn’t processed using term at a time (TAAT) mode. Check the query_processor_options that are set in results page settings for any of the following:

  • -daat=0

  • -service_volume=low

If either of these are set then the URL promotion and removal functionality will not work.

If these are not set then:

  1. Run a search using search.json on the search that has the curator rule defined for keywords that match the trigger.

  2. Check the question element of the data model and look for the following elements:

    • question.additionalParameters.promote_urls: this will be defined and set to the URL as defined in a promote results action if the trigger matches.

    • question.additionalParameters.remove_urls: this will be defined and set to the URL as defined in a remove results action if the trigger matches.

  3. If these are set as expected then the curator rule is functioning correctly.

If you don’t see the URL promoted or removed as expected then closely inspect the URL as this must exactly match the URL that is in the search result set.

Common reasons for URLs not being promoted or removed:

  • The URL does not exactly match the URL in the result set (this includes http/https differences in the URL), so it can’t be promoted or removed. The URL used for comparison is returned in the indexUrl field for the search result.

  • The URL is not returned in the results when the query is run, so it can’t be promoted or removed.

Tutorial: Advert or simple message is not displaying

  1. Run a search using search.json on the search that has the curator rule defined for keywords that match the trigger.

  2. Check the response element of the data model and look for the following elements:

    • response.curator.exhibits: this will be populated with any curator exhibits that are triggered by the query.

  3. If this is set as expected, the curator rule is functioning correctly.

If you don’t see the exhibit displayed in the search results then you need to check the search results template, or the code being used to process the search.json, to ensure it is configured to display curator exhibits.

Tutorial: Best bet is not displaying

  1. Run a search using search.json on the search that has the best bet defined for keywords that match the trigger.

  2. Check the response element of the data model and look for the following elements:

    • response.curator.exhibits: this will be populated with any curator exhibits that are triggered by the query.

      A best bet is a curator exhibit that has a category of BEST_BETS.
  3. If this is set as expected, the curator rule is functioning correctly.

If you don’t see the best bet displayed in the search results then you need to check the search results template to ensure it is configured to display best bets.

See also