Search Improvement

“0” and “O”, “1” and “I”, “5” and “S”, etc. should both return results.

This sounds good in theory, but can search fields ever contain both ?
e.g. 9U0IA
or is it strictly one or the other ? Would we use 1337 5P34k LEET SPEAK rules ?

What if I was searching for

HUBBELL 9U0IA 6 ELBOW CONNECTOR KIT (134025)

should 9UO1A match ?
should 9U01A match ?

The model number should return if it is searched for with dashes, spaces,
or none.

So we would want to be able to convert between kebab-case , text case, and presumable PascalCase and nocase.

If we started storing the alternate manufacturer, and it showed up on the
product page, that would be beneficial.

This is a good suggestion but is related to the search task ? like is there product pages in the search bar.

If there are no results, then there shouldn't be a bunch of unrelated results. Sometimes it says there are 10000 results and sometimes it says there are 0 results, but it is just a small area at the top that could be easy to miss and immediately leads into products that are seemingly unrelated to the search.

So what would be the desired outcome ? Should we make it more apparent that we don't have the desired product ? E.G Make the text that product doesn't exist in our system bigger ? or remove related products altogether ?

Just trying to make sure I understand the product requirements!