Site Search Tracking Of Non Existing Products
-
I am working towards optimizing the site search box of an ecommerce website and I wish to track the keywords which users are searching but which are yielding no results. Please see the image for the same.
I wish to assimilate data on the same which would then allow me to add products which users are searching but which the site doesn't have. However my problem is that I don't know how you could obtain this data in analytics because these results manifest itself in the form of searchresults.php.
I know that analyzing search refinements and percentage of exits in Google Analytics is an option but I want a more compact and simpler solution to the problem where I could see exactly all the data in one place. Does anyone have suggestions on how this can be done? Thanks in advance,
-
I understand that optimizing the site search box for the right pages is crucial but my question is how do you track the searches that are returning 0 results. For example, is there a code which I could implement for the page that returns no results.
Again this would be a dynamic page and therefore I won't be able to track it in analytics. I want a system where I get compact data so that I could include products which my site doesn't have provided the search volume of that product is large.
-
I've seen this done on a project I worked on before.
First, we logged every query that returned 0 results with a little bit of PHP code. The code wrote to a .txt file that was easily readable. After a month we had a significant amount of data.
The data was used to track what products were being searched for that weren't returning results. Then we used the data to decide if we should add those products or if our search wasn't returning proper results. What we found was that many people searched for products that we did carry, but the search didn't return the proper results. For instance, the search might not return a result if a search was for the BRAND of the item. Though it should have, it didn't. Also, a user might search for "widgets", but all the products were named "$brand $size widget". Because of the "s" at the end of the word our search would return 0 results, but we carried hundreds of widgets.
First we improved the search to pick up results of one character off. Then we included any manufacturer / brands. We also had the search display results from the title of articles on our site. This significantly improved the user experience and sales.
We then took the data left over and decided what the user was searching for and how to use that to our advantage. Many users are too lazy to use the navigation on a website to find what they want. If they search for "blue widgets" and 0 results display the users often assume we don't carry them - though we do. So, this is a very good tactic to use to increase conversions.
It worked very well for us. I hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Merging 5 Sites
Hi there We have 5 separate sites which handle different regions/niches that we work in, and we are planning to merge into one so we have a logical path for 301 redirects. The sites have DA's as follows: Site 1 - DA 36
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ben10001
Site 2 - DA 31
Site 3 - DA 29
Site 4 - DA 27
Site 5 - DA 20 Does anyone have any experience with how the DA would flow through to the new site? Each site currently relates to a different niche that we work with, and we are planning to keep the content structured similarly, probably like this: https://newtoplevelsite/site1/products, https://newtoplevelsite/site2/products and so on. That makes 301 redirects easy and also gives us more control in managing users and different teams in Wordpress. We would link the different niches through the top menu and links within the pages. Is there a better solution? Would it make more sense to have https://newtoplevelsite/products/site1, https://newtoplevelsite/products/site2, and so on? Thanks for the ideas0 -
Redirecting Ecommerce Site
Hi I'm working on a big site migration I'm setting up redirects for all the old categories to point to the new ones. I'm doing this based on relevancy, the categories don't match up exactly but I've tried to redirect to the most relevant alternative. Would this be the right approach?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Mobile First Index: What Could Happen To Sites w Large Desktop but Small Mobile Sites?
I have a question about how Mobile First could affect websites with separate (and smaller) mobile vs desktop sites. Referencing this SE Roundtable article (seorountable dot com /google-mobile-first-index-22953.html), "If you have less content on your mobile version than on your desktop version - Google will probably see the less content mobile version. Google said they are indexing the mobile version first." But Google/ Gary Illyes are also on the record stating the switch to mobile-first should be minimally disruptive. Does "Mobile First" mean that they'll consider desktop URLs "second", or will they actually just completely discount the desktop site in lieu of the mobile one? In other words: will content on your desktop site that does not appear in mobile count in desktop searches? I can't find clear answer anywhere (see also: /jlh-marketing dot com/mobile-first-unanswered-questions/). Obviously the writing is on the wall (and has been for years) that responsive is the way to go moving forward - but just looking for any other viewpoints/feedback here since it can be really expensive for some people to upgrade. I'm basically torn between "okay we gotta upgrade to responsive now" and "well, this may not be as critical as it seems". Sigh... Thanks in advance for any feedback and thoughts. LOL - I selected "there may not be a right answer to this question" when submitting this to the Moz community. 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mirabile0 -
Review of our site
Hi Moz-Fans 🙂 I'm doing SEO for about a year now and have a new site to which I do not know where to improve any further. The main keyword is "Webdesign Freiburg" and the site is werkzeug - kasten . com Anyone want to have a look into and tell me what might bring us from page 2 to page 1 on google? Thanks a lot Marc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RWW0 -
301 old site to new site?
I have client with an old site - www.bestfamilylawattorney.com - which had a lot of spammy links (and bad rankings). Instead of fixing those issues, we started a new URL - www.berenjifamilylaw.com - with new content and redesign. Should I do a 301 redirect from old to new domain? If the old site was being penalized, would a 301 transfer that penalty? I just want to make sure I don't end up hurting the new site after doing all the work to start fresh. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Migrating a site from a standalone site to a subdivision of large .gov.uk site
The scenario We’ve been asked by a client, a Non-Government Organisation who are being absorbed by a larger government ministry, for help with the SEO of their site. They will be going from a reasonably large standalone site to a small sub-directory on a high authority government site and they want some input on how best to maintain their rankings. They will be going from the Number 1 ranked site in their niche (current site domainRank 59) to being a sub directory on a domainRank 100 site). The current site will remain, but as a members only resource, behind a paywall. I’ve been checking to see the impact that it had on a related site, but that one has put a catch all 302 redirect on it’s pages so is losing the benefit of a it’s historical authority. My thoughts Robust 301 redirect set up to pass as much benefit as possible to the new pages. Focus on rewriting content to promote most effective keywords – would suggest testing of titles, meta descriptions etc but not sure how often they will be able to edit the new site. ‘We have moved’ messaging going out to webmasters of existing linking sites to try to encourage as much revision of linking as possible. Development of link-bait to try and get the new pages seen. Am I going about this the right way? Thanks in advance. Phil
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smrs-digital0 -
Load balanced Site
Our client ecommerce site load from 3 different servers using load balancing. abc.com : IP: 222.222.222 Abc.com: IP: 111.111.111 For testing purpose 111.111.111 also point to beta.abc.com Now google crawling site beta.abc.com If we block beta.abc.com using robots.txt it will block google bot also , since beta.abc.com is really abc.com I know its confusing but I been trying to figure out. Ofcourse I can ask my dev to remove beta.abc.com make a seperate code and block it using .htaccess
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tpt.com0