What your visitors went looking for
The search box on your site, and the surprisingly useful list of what came back empty.
Overview
Every template comes with a search box, and it searches everything — pages, products, blog posts, locations, services — from one field. There's nothing to install and nothing to configure.
The part worth your attention isn't the search itself. It's the record of what people typed, and particularly what they typed and found nothing.
You'll find it under Presence in the side navigation, called Search.
It's already working
Search is on by default on every template, and it indexes your content as you publish it. A product added this morning is findable this morning; a page you unpublish stops appearing.
Matching is deliberately forgiving. People type in a hurry, in the singular when you wrote the plural, with a letter missing — and they should still find the thing.
There's a switch on the Search page if you'd rather not offer search at all. Most sites should leave it on: a visitor who can't find something usually leaves rather than browsing.
Reading the numbers
The Search page opens on a summary of a recent stretch of time, which you can widen or narrow to the last week, month, or quarter. Four numbers set the scene:
- Total searches — how often the box was used at all.
- Unique terms — how many different things people looked for.
- Empty searches — how many returned nothing.
- The empty rate — that count as a share of every search made.
Your own testing counts too. If you've been trying the search box while signed in, ignore the spike you just made.
Why empty results matter most
A search that returns nothing is a visitor telling you exactly what they wanted, in their own words, at the moment you failed to provide it. There is no other feedback on your site that direct.
Each one is one of three things: something to stock, something to rename, or a word to add to a product so it can be found. All three are small jobs with an obvious payoff.
A high empty rate is usually a naming problem rather than a stock problem — people looking for what you sell, using words you don't. If they search “sofa” and your product is called “three-seater”, both of you are right and only one of you made a sale.
What to do with the list
Work down the empty searches and give each one a home:
- You sell it, but under another name — put their word in the product's title or description so it matches.
- You don't sell it — decide whether enough people are asking to make it worth stocking.
- It isn't a product at all — searches for “returns”, “delivery”, or “parking” mean a page is missing, not a product.
- It's a typo of something you do sell — usually nothing to do, since matching is already forgiving.
Popular terms are worth reading as navigation feedback. Anything searched constantly probably deserves a place in your menu, where nobody has to search for it.
Frequently asked questions
No. It's on by default on every template and indexes your content as you publish, so a product added today is findable today.
Everything on your site — pages, products, posts, locations, services — from one field, rather than a separate search per section.
Yes, from the switch on the Search page. Worth thinking twice about: a visitor who can't find something usually leaves rather than browsing for it.
Yes — searches made while you're signed in aren't separated out. If the numbers jumped after an afternoon of testing, that's why.
You can look at the last week, month, or quarter. It starts from when your site went live, so a new site has little to show for a while.
Usually vocabulary rather than stock — people searching for what you sell using words you haven't written down. Read the actual terms; the fix is normally renaming rather than buying.
Only if it keeps happening. One search is noise; the same thing twenty times is a customer telling you what to stock next.
Yes, on every template and every screen size.
Usually — matching is forgiving about small differences and plurals. Words you've never used anywhere on the site are what genuinely come back empty.
Not directly. Indirectly it's one of the best SEO tools you have, because the empty searches tell you exactly which words your pages are missing.