The Basic (and Advanced) Search function searches the fields listed below, if descriptions and summaries are enabled:
Products:
Name
SKU
Manufacturer Part number
Description (including the HTML)
Summary (including the HTML)
Variants:
Name
SKU Suffix
Manufacturer Part Number
Entities:
Name
Search can be used on your site 2 ways:
Control: You can embed the basic search control into your skin wherever you would like the search box to appear, such as:
<div class="search-wrap">
<custom:Search ID="Search1" runat="server" />
</div>
Basic Search Page Link: You can link directly to the /search.aspx page from within the Topic: Template.TopNavigation
Additional Notes: Setting: SearchDescriptionsByDefaulttrueallows the search to include product Descriptions and Summaries as well.
Setting: Search_ShowPricesInResultstrueallows the search to include product prices in the search results.
By default, search terms that customers look for on your site are not logged. You can set the Search_LogSearches Setting to true to record those searches in the SearchLog table in your store's database. Those values can be queried out using a custom report.
You can use an XmlPackage based display for the Basic Search (and the Advanced Search), selectable with the Settings: XmlPackage.SearchPage and XmlPackage.SearchAdvPage
It is recommended that Full Text Searchnot be enabled in order for the Basic Search to operate effectively. You may want to experiment with FTS enabled/disabled to determine your preferred behavior.