Frequently Asked Questions
Data
Record size limits
Algolia limits the size of individual records for performance reasons. If you signed up for your plan online, the maximum record size is as follows:
- Business and Enterprise accounts have a 100 KB customizable limit:
- 100 KB for any individual record
- 100 KB average record size across all records
How do Algolia determine record size
To determine record size, Algolia process our JSON data file in the following way:
- Turn the file into a string.
- Remove extra spaces (spaces that are outside of key/value strings and not syntactically necessary).
- Transform it back into a JSON file. The record size limit is based on the size of this final JSON file.
How record size limits are applied
When we try to index records that exceed our plan’s limit, the API returns the Record is too big error. In this situation we must reduce the size of your records.
Reducing record sizes
There are two main ways to decrease record size:
- Analyse our structured data. If the data is not useful for either searching, faceting, ranking, or display, then it’s safe to remove. You can read more about simplifying record structure here.
- Split the records into smaller chunks and use Algolia’s distinct feature to only display the best result. You can read more about the distinct feature here.
Analytics
How often is Analytics updated?
The Analytics API is updated every 5 minutes with a 10-minute latency, meaning that Algolia process analytics data as fast as they receive jobs. However, there may be some delay in their ingestion pipeline, which can prevent data from being refreshed for up to a few hours.
What is the difference between the Search Count vs Tracked Search Count?
The Search count is the number of times a query has been searched. Search counts in Analytics are aggregated, whereas search requests refer to unaggregated search API calls made to the search engine for each keystroke during a search. For example, if users type "key," it will send search requests for "k," "ke," and "key," but only "key" will be used as a search in Analytics.
Tracked search count refers to the number of searches in which you include clickAnalytics:true in the query request. These searches are then forwarded to your Click and Conversion Analytics. If no searches are tracked, this means that you have not reported any searches to your click and conversion analytics.
Can I use Server-Side Google Tag Manager with Algolia?
No. Algolia currently does not have a supported plugin for server-side tagging. They do have a supported connector for client-side tagging with GTM, however this can be easily implemented in our micro frontend.
Security
Can I restrict an index to internal users only?
Yes, this is possible. you can create a new application to keep your data secure but this is also possible within the same application. In that case you can set the ACL of an API key to have access to a subset of indices for the public. This way, the search API key cannot access the private/internal indices. You can find some security best practices here.
Otherwise, Algolia Vault is an additional security feature that is only available as an add-on to our plan. Nevertheless the above is interesting when thinking about products which are not yet for sale and are in 'preview'.