How to filter by popularity instead of relevance in product search page of Woocommerce

Question

Hope everyone is doing well. I have a question that I need help with and I would appreciate any guidance.

On the default product search page of woocommerce, when a product is searched for, it filters or sort by relevance by default. What is the best way to change it to sort by popularity by default?

I came across the code below, modified it, and placed it in the functions.php file of my child theme, but when I tried the modified version, it breaks the functionality of the sort by as in it does not filter.

Original code:

if ( ! function_exists( 'woocommerce_catalog_ordering' ) ) {
/**
 * Output the product sorting options.
 */
function woocommerce_catalog_ordering() {
    if ( ! wc_get_loop_prop( 'is_paginated' ) || ! woocommerce_products_will_display() ) {
        return;
    }
    $orderby                 = isset( $_GET['orderby'] ) ? wc_clean( wp_unslash( $_GET['orderby'] ) ) : apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby' ) ); // WPCS: sanitization ok, input var ok, CSRF ok.
    $show_default_orderby    = 'menu_order' === apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby' ) );
    $catalog_orderby_options = apply_filters( 'woocommerce_catalog_orderby', array(
        'menu_order' => __( 'Default sorting', 'woocommerce' ),
        'popularity' => __( 'Sort by popularity', 'woocommerce' ),
        'rating'     => __( 'Sort by average rating', 'woocommerce' ),
        'date'       => __( 'Sort by newness', 'woocommerce' ),
        'price'      => __( 'Sort by price: low to high', 'woocommerce' ),
        'price-desc' => __( 'Sort by price: high to low', 'woocommerce' ),
    ) );

    $default_orderby = wc_get_loop_prop( 'is_search' ) ? 'relevance' : apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby' ) );
    $orderby         = isset( $_GET['orderby'] ) ? wc_clean( wp_unslash( $_GET['orderby'] ) ) : $default_orderby; // WPCS: sanitization ok, input var ok, CSRF ok.

    if ( wc_get_loop_prop( 'is_search' ) ) {
        $catalog_orderby_options = array_merge( array( 'relevance' => __( 'Relevance', 'woocommerce' ) ), $catalog_orderby_options );

        unset( $catalog_orderby_options['menu_order'] );
        if ( 'menu_order' === $orderby ) {
            $orderby = 'relevance';
        }
    }

    if ( ! $show_default_orderby ) {
        unset( $catalog_orderby_options['menu_order'] );
    }
    if ( 'no' === get_option( 'woocommerce_enable_review_rating' ) ) {
        unset( $catalog_orderby_options['rating'] );
    }

    if ( ! array_key_exists( $orderby, $catalog_orderby_options ) ) {
        $orderby = current( array_keys( $catalog_orderby_options ) );
    }

    wc_get_template( 'loop/orderby.php', array(
        'catalog_orderby_options' => $catalog_orderby_options,
        'orderby'                 => $orderby,
        'show_default_orderby'    => $show_default_orderby,
    ) );
}

}

Modified code:

if ( ! function_exists( 'woocommerce_catalog_ordering' ) ) {
/**
 * Output the product sorting options.
 */
function woocommerce_catalog_ordering() {
    if ( ! wc_get_loop_prop( 'is_paginated' ) || ! woocommerce_products_will_display() ) {
        return;
    }
    $orderby                 = isset( $_GET['orderby'] ) ? wc_clean( wp_unslash( $_GET['orderby'] ) ) : apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'popularity' ) ); // WPCS: sanitization ok, input var ok, CSRF ok.
    $show_default_orderby    = 'popularity' === apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby' ) );
    $catalog_orderby_options = apply_filters( 'woocommerce_catalog_orderby', array(
        'menu_order' => __( 'Default sorting', 'woocommerce' ),
        'popularity' => __( 'Sort by popularity', 'woocommerce' ),
        'rating'     => __( 'Sort by average rating', 'woocommerce' ),
        'date'       => __( 'Sort by newness', 'woocommerce' ),
        'price'      => __( 'Sort by price: low to high', 'woocommerce' ),
        'price-desc' => __( 'Sort by price: high to low', 'woocommerce' ),
    ) );

    $default_orderby = wc_get_loop_prop( 'is_search' ) ? 'popularity' : apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'popularity' ) );
    $orderby         = isset( $_GET['orderby'] ) ? wc_clean( wp_unslash( $_GET['orderby'] ) ) : $default_orderby; // WPCS: sanitization ok, input var ok, CSRF ok.

    if ( wc_get_loop_prop( 'is_search' ) ) {
        $catalog_orderby_options = array_merge( array( 'relevance' => __( 'Relevance', 'woocommerce' ) ), $catalog_orderby_options );

        unset( $catalog_orderby_options['menu_order'] );
        if ( 'menu_order' === $orderby ) {
            $orderby = 'relevance';
        }
    }

    if ( ! $show_default_orderby ) {
        unset( $catalog_orderby_options['menu_order'] );
    }
    if ( 'no' === get_option( 'woocommerce_enable_review_rating' ) ) {
        unset( $catalog_orderby_options['rating'] );
    }

    if ( ! array_key_exists( $orderby, $catalog_orderby_options ) ) {
        $orderby = current( array_keys( $catalog_orderby_options ) );
    }

    wc_get_template( 'loop/orderby.php', array(
        'catalog_orderby_options' => $catalog_orderby_options,
        'orderby'                 => $orderby,
        'show_default_orderby'    => $show_default_orderby,
    ) );
}

}

Thank you.

Kind regards.

Answer 1

There's a bunch of code in there that I don't know the purpose of, but it looks like this block of code...

  if ( wc_get_loop_prop( 'is_search' ) ) {
        $catalog_orderby_options = array_merge( array( 'relevance' => __( 'Relevance', 'woocommerce' ) ), $catalog_orderby_options );

        unset( $catalog_orderby_options['menu_order'] );
        if ( 'menu_order' === $orderby ) {
            $orderby = 'relevance';
        }
    }

... still needs to be updated for popularity instead of relevance.