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How to Fix Problems with Google Analytics Site Search Data

In a companion article, "How to Gain Keyword Insight from Searches within Your Site," you learned that site search data can be very useful to help you get better Paid Search and SEO results. Configure Google Analytics as described in that article. After waiting a couple of days to gather the data, login and take a look at the site search report. What if you find the data really surprising?

There are three primary problems that occur with site search data. In each case the data is incorrect, but often in subtle ways. Even if you've been using site search for a while, it's worth checking to make sure you're not accidentally running into these and looking at skewed data as a consequence.

Problem 1. Nobody Seems to Be Using Site Search

You may have setup site search in Google Analytics, but the data shows that nobody uses site search. Could that be true?

First make sure your site search works. Try a phrase that's unique and nobody else would type in. (I often use "rhubarb." Pick your own.) Within the search results page, view the HTML source and check to be sure that the JavaScript appears on the page. Forgetting to add JavaScript for Google Analytics is one of the most common mistakes.

There's a related problem where the results page is for searches with zero results is different from the results pages that do contain results. Make sure the JavaScript tracking code is included in both pages, because you want to know about those searches that yielded no pages. It is very valuable data.

Problem 2. Numbers Are Showing as Keywords

A second problem might be data showing up, but the top keywords in the report appear to be numbers like 1, 2 and 3 -- or the report contains unbelievably long number strings.

Probably site search is picking up the page numbers from your search results page or a session ID. Most likely when you configured Google Analytics for site search you chose the wrong parameter name for the search keyword or perhaps chose several different parameters.

Google Analytics permits you to specify up to five different parameters for site search. It's tempting to grab all the parameters you see in the results page URL and shove them into the Google Analytics configuration screen. That's almost certainly going to get you into trouble and produce lots of data that don't represent real search keywords. Only rarely do you need to give Google Analytics more than a single site search parameter.

Problem 3. Precise Search Terms Dominate the Site Search Report

The site search report looks okay at first glance. But then you realize that there's a small number of really precise terms that totally dominate the report. People aren't consistently typing these terms so frequently -- are they?

No. Most likely these keywords are creeping into the data from existing hyperlinks. This can happen when search results pages are used as a quick-and-dirty product category listing. For example, a link such as:

http://www.biketiresdirect.com/search_results.asp?kw2=italy

shows all Italian bicycle products. To correct this, the site owner needs to create a temporary product category, perhaps for use as a campaign landing page, or to show products that relate to one another but don't fit into the same category.

Because links like this are fixed, it only takes a few clicks for the relevant search term to appear in your top 100, thus starting to skew the results. The problem, of course, is that users didn't type in that search term; they simply clicked a link and that has very different intent. You don't want those clicks to appear in your search terms data. Begin by modifying your site to remove any such search links that are contained on your pages.

However, your affiliates will often create search queries that pre-populate the relevant products at the same time as inject the affiliate ID. It's almost impossible to remove to get your affiliates to remove such links on their sites.  The easiest solution is to specially code your search page to distinguish the pre-populated terms from those actually typed in. This requires server coding, but it's well worth it if this is a problem on your site. Checking for a cookie is usually all you need to do, then populate data into Google Analytics only if it's human generated. Ask your programmer for help with this.

Take care of these common problems and your site search data will improve dramatically.

John Marshall is co-founder of MarketMotive.com, a company uses top experts to train clients in Internet marketing best practices and provides consulting for strategy and implementation.