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Search analytics

Open Search in Analytics to review what visitors try to find and which results they select. This view is available only on sites with Search enabled.

Choose the period you want to understand

Start date and End date apply across Overview and Search, including totals, trends and ranked lists. The selection stays the same when you move between these views. Date and time controls use your local time zone. The end instant is excluded: to include all of 1–7 September locally, choose 1 September at midnight as the start and 8 September at midnight as the end. Trend intervals use UTC boundaries, so their labels may differ from your local calendar day.

Today so far starts at your local midnight and ends now. Last 7 days and Last 30 days are rolling periods ending now, including today's activity. Refresh data advances these periods to the current time. A custom end marked Now also advances; an end date and time you enter stays fixed.

Granularity sets the time intervals shown in a trend: hour, day, week or month. Smaller intervals show more detail; larger intervals make a longer period easier to read. Longer periods cannot use every interval. If your choice is too detailed for the period, the control selects a valid interval automatically. Check the displayed granularity after changing dates.

Choose Compare previous period to compare with an equally long period immediately before your selection. A seven-day selection compares with the preceding seven days; it does not automatically compare calendar months. Both periods must fit within the available history. If the controls show a range warning, adjust the dates or turn off comparison. Future dates and dates outside the available history cannot be used.

Try the search analytics controls

Change the period and compare it with the previous one. The example uses invented searches for Garden studio, including “parking” searches with no results. Choose No activity or a request error to see how the figures differ.

Find out what visitors search for

The Search view appears only when your site has Search enabled. If your site does not include Search, use Overview to review page activity.

  • Total searches counts completed searches, including searches made using filters alone. Search volume trend shows how often searches were completed over time.
  • Top queries shows commonly searched words. The empty-query / filter-only label can appear when someone searches without typing words.
  • Zero-result queries shows searches with words that returned no results. Filter-only searches are not listed here.
  • Zero-result rate is the proportion of completed searches that returned no results, including filter-only searches. If searches occurred and all returned results, it shows 0.0%. If there were no searches, there is no proportion to report and the section shows no data.
  • Top selected results counts results visitors actually opened. Results are identified by a content identifier or website path. One search can lead to several selections, so these counts are not a percentage of searches that led to a selection or a conversion rate.

Searches with no results can show information people expected to find. For example, repeated searches for “parking” with no results suggest checking whether your visit information answers that question and can be found through Search. Review the relevant content with your editor before deciding what to change; the search words alone do not establish why someone could not find an answer.

Check whether results are ready

Loading means results are still being requested. Refresh data requests an update for the current selection. Existing results can stay visible while the sections show an updating message. After you change the selection, a section may say Showing data from the previous selection. Wait for that message to clear before reading those figures as results for the new period.

No data for this period means there is no recorded activity to show for that measure. It is different from Analysis unavailable or Unable to load analysis, which mean results could not be obtained. Sections can load or fail independently, and a failed refresh can leave earlier results visible. Use the affected section's Retry action. If the problem persists, give your site support contact the message and selected period; do not treat an error as zero activity.

Read about access and what Analytics records, or explore Page analytics.