---
title: "Rules affecting a grouped search experience"
slug: "rules-affecting-a-grouped-search-experience"
abstract: "Describes how a grouped search experience is affected by boost, blacklist, and bury rules."
---
# Rules affecting a grouped search experience

Rules applied to a search results widget affect both [grouped and ungrouped items](https://doc.sitecore.com/search/en/users/search-user-guide/display-relevant-results/document-grouping.html "Document grouping"). This page describes the expected behavior of grouped items in the search experience when you apply boost[^boost] rules, blacklist[^blacklist] rules, or bury[^UUID-48c6b92f-d97a-3d5b-9006-85685f9183f0_N675ff1692a266] rules.

## Boost rules

If you apply a boost rule, for example to boost white-colored items, Sitecore Search will consider that this grouped item contains a variation that is white, and therefore the grouped result will be boosted among search results.

If you've disabled grouping on a widget, and you want to boost items that are white, Sitecore Search will only boost the white variations since they're ungrouped.

## Blacklist rules

Blacklisted product variations will be excluded from your search results. If grouping is enabled, and a grouped product contains a blacklisted variant, the product's group will still appear in your search results, just without the blacklisted variant.

For example, if you blacklist items that are blue, Sitecore Search won’t blacklist your grouped product completely if it has a blue variation because the group might also contain a white and a red variant. It will, however, blacklist the blue variations so they won't be returned in search results.

## Bury rules

If grouping is enabled and a grouped product contains a buried variant, the whole product group will be buried in search results.

[^boost]: A way to increase the relevance of the item or the group of items by making them appear higher in the results list. You can use this to improve the visibility of certain content.

[^blacklist]: A way to exclude an item or a group of items from the search results, also called a *blocklist*. This is useful when you do not want to show certain items on a certain website or for specific visitors.

[^UUID-48c6b92f-d97a-3d5b-9006-85685f9183f0_N675ff1692a266]: A way to decrease the relevance of the item or the group of items by making them appear lower in the search results. You can use this to reduce the visibility of certain content.