Guides / Building Search UI / Going further

Feb. 23, 2024

Sync your URLs with Vue InstantSearch

Working examples

This code has been specifically created for Vue 2. Some modifications may be required for it to work correctly in Vue 3.

Basic URLs

This guide uses the router from InstantSearch.js. Make sure you add instantsearch.js to your project’s dependencies in addition to vue-instantsearch.

Vue InstantSearch provides a basic way to activate the browser URL synchronization with the routing option.

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<template>
  <ais-instant-search
    :search-client="searchClient"
    index-name="instant_search"
    :routing="routing"
  >
    <!-- add the other components here -->
  </ais-instant-search>
</template>

<script>
import { history as historyRouter } from 'instantsearch.js/es/lib/routers';
import { singleIndex as singleIndexMapping } from 'instantsearch.js/es/lib/stateMappings';

export default {
  data() {
    return {
      searchClient: algoliasearch(
        'latency',
        '6be0576ff61c053d5f9a3225e2a90f76'
      ),
      routing: {
        router: historyRouter(),
        stateMapping: singleIndexMapping('instant_search'),
      },
    };
  },
};
</script>

Assume the following search UI state:

Query: “galaxy”
Menu:
- categories: “Cell Phones”
Refinement List:
- brand: “Apple”, “Samsung”
Page: 2

The resulting URL in your browser’s URL bar will look like this:

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https://example.org/?instant_search[query]=galaxy&instant_search[menu][categories]=All Unlocked Cell Phones&instant_search[refinementList][brand][0]=Apple&instant_search[refinementList][brand][0]=Samsung&instant_search[page]=2

This URL is accurate and can be translated back to a search UI state. However, this isn’t the most human-readable, or optimized for search engines. The next section shows how to make it more SEO-friendly.

Rewriting URLs manually

The default URLs that InstantSearch generates are comprehensive, but if you have many widgets, this can also generate noise. You may want to decide what goes in the URL and what doesn’t, or even rename the query parameters to something that makes more sense to you.

The stateMapping defines how to go from InstantSearch’s internal state to a URL, and vice versa. You can override it to rename query parameters and choose what to include in the URL.

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export default {
  data() {
    return {
      searchClient: algoliasearch(
        'latency',
        '6be0576ff61c053d5f9a3225e2a90f76'
      ),
      routing: {
        stateMapping: {
          stateToRoute(uiState) {
            // ...
          },
          routeToState(routeState) {
            // ...
          },
        },
      },
    };
  },
};

InstantSearch manages a state called uiState. It contains information about the query, facets, or the current page, including the hierarchy of the added widgets.

To persist this state in the URL, InstantSearch first converts the uiState into an object called routeState. This routeState then becomes a URL. Conversely, when InstantSearch reads the URL and applies it to the search, it converts routeState into uiState. This logic lives in two functions:

stateToRoute: converts uiState to routeState.
routeToState: converts routeState to uiState.

Assume the following search UI state:

Query: “galaxy”
Menu:
- categories: “Cell Phones”
Refinement List:
- brand: “Apple” and “Samsung”
Page: 2

This translates into the following uiState:

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{
  "indexName": {
    "query": "galaxy",
    "menu": {
      "categories": "Cell Phones"
    },
    "refinementList": {
      "brand": ["Apple", "Samsung"]
    },
    "page": 2
  }
}

Implement stateToRoute to flatten this object into a URL, and routeToState to restore the URL into a UI state:

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const indexName = 'instant_search';

export default {
  data() {
    return {
      indexName,
      searchClient: algoliasearch(
        'latency',
        '6be0576ff61c053d5f9a3225e2a90f76'
      ),
      routing: {
        stateMapping: {
          stateToRoute(uiState) {
            const indexUiState = uiState[indexName];
            return {
              q: indexUiState.query,
              categories: indexUiState.menu && indexUiState.menu.categories,
              brand:
                indexUiState.refinementList &&
                indexUiState.refinementList.brand,
              page: indexUiState.page,
            };
          },
          routeToState(routeState) {
            return {
              [indexName]: {
                query: routeState.q,
                menu: {
                  categories: routeState.categories,
                },
                refinementList: {
                  brand: routeState.brand,
                },
                page: routeState.page,
              },
            };
          },
        },
      },
    };
  },
};

SEO-friendly URLs

This guide uses the router from InstantSearch.js. Make sure you add instantsearch.js to your project’s dependencies in addition to vue-instantsearch.

URLs are more than query parameters. Another important part is the path. Manipulating the URL path is a common ecommerce pattern that better references your page results. In this section, you’ll learn how to create this kind of URLs:

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https://example.org/search/Cell+Phones/?query=galaxy&page=2&brands=Apple&brands=Samsung

This URL is composed of the path which now includes /search, then /Cell+Phones for the category. The query parameters are also simplified by only using the attribute name as the key. This requires you to have only one widget per attribute.

Implementation example

In the following SEO-friendly example the brand is stored in the path, and the query and page as query parameters.

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import { history as historyRouter } from 'instantsearch.js/es/lib/routers';

// Returns a slug from the category name.
// Spaces are replaced by "+" to make
// the URL easier to read and other
// characters are encoded.
function getCategorySlug(name) {
  return name
    .split(' ')
    .map(encodeURIComponent)
    .join('+');
}

// Returns a name from the category slug.
// The "+" are replaced by spaces and other
// characters are decoded.
function getCategoryName(slug) {
  return slug
    .split('+')
    .map(decodeURIComponent)
    .join(' ');
}

const routing = {
  router: historyRouter({
    windowTitle({ category, query }) {
      const queryTitle = query ? `Results for "${query}"` : 'Search';

      if (category) {
        return `${category} – ${queryTitle}`;
      }

      return queryTitle;
    },

    createURL({ qsModule, routeState, location }) {
      const urlParts = location.href.match(/^(.*?)\/search/);
      const baseUrl = `${urlParts ? urlParts[1] : ''}/`;

      const categoryPath = routeState.category
        ? `${getCategorySlug(routeState.category)}/`
        : '';
      const queryParameters = {};

      if (routeState.query) {
        queryParameters.query = encodeURIComponent(routeState.query);
      }
      if (routeState.page !== 1) {
        queryParameters.page = routeState.page;
      }
      if (routeState.brands) {
        queryParameters.brands = routeState.brands.map(encodeURIComponent);
      }

      const queryString = qsModule.stringify(queryParameters, {
        addQueryPrefix: true,
        arrayFormat: 'repeat',
      });

      return `${baseUrl}search/${categoryPath}${queryString}`;
    },

    parseURL({ qsModule, location }) {
      const pathnameMatches = location.pathname.match(/search\/(.*?)\/?$/);
      const category = getCategoryName(
        (pathnameMatches && pathnameMatches[1]) || ''
      );
      const { query = '', page, brands = [] } = qsModule.parse(
        location.search.slice(1)
      );
      // `qs` does not return an array when there's a single value.
      const allBrands = Array.isArray(brands)
        ? brands
        : [brands].filter(Boolean);

      return {
        query: decodeURIComponent(query),
        page,
        brands: allBrands.map(decodeURIComponent),
        category,
      };
    },
  }),

  stateMapping: {
      stateToRoute(uiState) {
        const indexUiState = uiState['instant_search'] || {};

        return {
          query: indexUiState.query,
          page: indexUiState.page,
          brands: indexUiState.refinementList && indexUiState.refinementList.brand,
          category: indexUiState.menu && indexUiState.menu.categories
        };
      },

      routeToState(routeState) {
        return {
          instant_search: {
            query: routeState.query,
            page: routeState.page,
            menu: {
              categories: routeState.category
            },
            refinementList: {
              brand: routeState.brands
            },
          },
        };
      },
    },
  },
};

You’re now using the history router to explicitly set options on the default router mechanism used in the first example. The router and stateMapping options are used to map uiState to routeState, and vice versa.

Using the routing option as an object, configure:

windowTitle: a method to map the routeState object returned from stateToRoute to the window title.
createURL: a method called every time you need to create a URL. This should be done when:
- You want to synchronize the routeState to the browser URL,
- You want to render a tags in the menu widget,
- You call createURL in one of your connectors’ rendering methods.
parseURL: a method called every time users load or reload the page, or click the browser’s back or next buttons.

Making URLs more discoverable

In real-life applications, you might want to make specific categories easier to access by associating them with readable and memorable URLs.

Given the dataset, you can make some categories more discoverable:

“Cameras and camcorders” → /Cameras
“Car electronics and GPS” → /Cars

In this example, whenever users visit https://example.org/search/Cameras, it pre-selects the “Cameras and camcorders” filter. This is achieved with a dictionary:

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// Step 1. Add the dictionaries to convert the names and the slugs
const encodedCategories = {
  Cameras: 'Cameras and camcorders',
  Cars: 'Car electronics and GPS',
  Phones: 'Phones',
  TV: 'TV and home theater',
};

const decodedCategories = Object.keys(encodedCategories).reduce((acc, key) => {
  const newKey = encodedCategories[key];
  const newValue = key;

  return {
    ...acc,
    [newKey]: newValue,
  };
}, {});

// Step 2. Update the getters to use the encoded/decoded values
function getCategorySlug(name) {
  const encodedName = decodedCategories[name] || name;

  return encodedName
    .split(' ')
    .map(encodeURIComponent)
    .join('+');
}

function getCategoryName(slug) {
  const decodedSlug = encodedCategories[slug] || slug;

  return decodedSlug
    .split('+')
    .map(decodeURIComponent)
    .join(' ');
}

You can build these dictionaries from your Algolia records.

With such a solution, you have full control over what categories are discoverable from the URL.

About SEO

For your search results to be part of a public search engine’s results, you must be selective. Trying to index too many search results pages could be considered spam.

To do that, create a robots.txt and host it at https://example.org/robots.txt.

Here’s an example based on the URL scheme you created.

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User-agent: *
Allow: /search/Audio/
Allow: /search/Phones/
Disallow: /search/
Allow: *

Combining with Vue router

The previous examples were using the InstantSearch router. This is fine in almost all of the use cases, but if you plan on using Vue Router too, and also plan on reading the URL with Vue Router in the search page to show something outside of the InstantSearch life cycle, you can choose to synchronize with Vue Router. This isn’t necessary if you are using Vue Router and aren’t planning to read from the URL.

Instead of using historyRouter, a new one is written from scratch. The router key expects an object with the following keys as values:

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const routing = {
  router: {
    read() {
      /* Read from the URL and return a routeState */
    },
    write(routeState) {
      /* Write to the URL */
    },
    createURL(routeState) {
      /* Return a URL as a string */
    },
    onUpdate(callback) {
      /* Call this callback whenever the URL changes externally */
    },
    dispose() {
      /* Remove any listeners */
    },
  },
};

For simplicity, in this example, a stateMapping won’t be completed. The default configuration of Vue Router doesn’t allow deeply nested URLs, so that must be implemented first in main.js:

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import qs from 'qs';

const router = new Router({
  routes: [
    // ...
  ],
  // set custom query resolver
  parseQuery(query) {
    return qs.parse(query);
  },
  stringifyQuery(query) {
    const result = qs.stringify(query);

    return result ? `?${result}` : '';
  },
});

Fill in the router key on the routing object in the data function:

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const vueRouter = this.$router; /* get this from Vue Router */

const routing = {
  router: {
    read() {
      return vueRouter.currentRoute.query;
    },
    write(routeState) {
      vueRouter.push({
        query: routeState,
      });
    },
    createURL(routeState) {
      return vueRouter.resolve({
        query: routeState,
      }).href;
    },
    onUpdate(cb) {
      if (typeof window === 'undefined') return;

      this._removeAfterEach = vueRouter.afterEach(() => {
        cb(this.read());
      });

      this._onPopState = () => {
        cb(this.read());
      };
      window.addEventListener('popstate', this._onPopState);
    },
    dispose() {
      if (typeof window === 'undefined') {
        return;
      }
      if (this._onPopState) {
        window.removeEventListener('popstate', this._onPopState);
      }
      if (this._removeAfterEach) {
        this._removeAfterEach();
      }
    },
  },
};

Combining with Nuxt.js

To enable routing in a Nuxt app, you can’t use the createServerRootMixin factory as a mixin as usual, because you need to access Vue Router which is only available on the component instance.

Here’s the workaround:

Use createServerRootMixin in data, so this.$router is available.
Create an InstantSearch router that wraps Vue Router.
Set up provide as the root mixin would otherwise do.
Set up findResultsState in serverPrefetch.
Call hydrate in beforeMount.

First, set up a custom renderToString function.

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<template>
  <ais-instant-search-ssr>
    <!-- add the other components here -->
  </ais-instant-search-ssr>
</template>

<script>
import { AisInstantSearchSsr, createServerRootMixin } from 'vue-instantsearch';
import algoliasearch from 'algoliasearch/lite';
import _renderToString from 'vue-server-renderer/basic';

function renderToString(app) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    _renderToString(app, (err, res) => {
      if (err) reject(err);
      resolve(res);
    });
  });
}

const searchClient = algoliasearch(
  'latency',
  '6be0576ff61c053d5f9a3225e2a90f76'
);
</script>

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<template>
  <ais-instant-search-ssr>
    <!-- add the other components here -->
  </ais-instant-search-ssr>
</template>

<script>
import {
  AisInstantSearchSsr,
  createServerRootMixin,
} from 'vue-instantsearch/vue3/es';
import algoliasearch from 'algoliasearch/lite';
import _renderToString from 'vue-server-renderer/basic';

function renderToString(app) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    _renderToString(app, (err, res) => {
      if (err) reject(err);
      resolve(res);
    });
  });
}

const searchClient = algoliasearch(
  'latency',
  '6be0576ff61c053d5f9a3225e2a90f76'
);
</script>

Wrap the Vue router for usage with Vue InstantSearch.

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<script>
// ...

function nuxtRouter(vueRouter) {
  return {
    read() {
      return vueRouter.currentRoute.query;
    },
    write(routeState) {
      // Only push a new entry if the URL changed (avoid duplicated entries in the history)
      if (this.createURL(routeState) === this.createURL(this.read())) {
        return;
      }
      vueRouter.push({
        query: routeState,
      });
    },
    createURL(routeState) {
      return vueRouter.resolve({
        query: routeState,
      }).href;
    },
    onUpdate(cb) {
      if (typeof window === 'undefined') return;

      this._removeAfterEach = vueRouter.afterEach(() => {
        cb(this.read());
      });

      this._onPopState = () => {
        cb(this.read());
      };
      window.addEventListener('popstate', this._onPopState);
    },
    dispose() {
      if (typeof window === 'undefined') {
        return;
      }
      if (this._onPopState) {
        window.removeEventListener('popstate', this._onPopState);
      }
      if (this._removeAfterEach) {
        this._removeAfterEach();
      }
    },
  };
}

export default {
  data() {
    // Create it in `data` to access the Vue Router
    const mixin = createServerRootMixin({
      searchClient,
      indexName: 'instant_search',
      routing: {
        router: nuxtRouter(this.$router),
      },
    });
    return {
      ...mixin.data(),
    };
  },
  provide() {
    return {
      // Provide the InstantSearch instance for SSR
      $_ais_ssrInstantSearchInstance: this.instantsearch,
    };
  },
  serverPrefetch() {
    return this.instantsearch
      .findResultsState({ component: this, renderToString })
      .then((algoliaState) => {
        this.$ssrContext.nuxt.algoliaState = algoliaState;
      });
  },
  beforeMount() {
    const results =
      (this.$nuxt.context && this.$nuxt.context.nuxtState.algoliaState) ||
      window.__NUXT__.algoliaState;

    this.instantsearch.hydrate(results);

    // Remove the SSR state so it can't be applied again by mistake
    delete this.$nuxt.context.nuxtState.algoliaState;
    delete window.__NUXT__.algoliaState;
  },
  components: {
    AisInstantSearchSsr,
    // Add your other components here
  },
};
</script>

As in Vue Router, you must set up Nuxt to write deep query strings. In Nuxt, you do this in nuxt.config.js:

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// nuxt.config.js
module.exports = {
  router: {
    parseQuery(queryString) {
      return require('qs').parse(queryString);
    },
    stringifyQuery(object) {
      var queryString = require('qs').stringify(object);
      return queryString ? '?' + queryString : '';
    },
  },
};

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