Site Search Now Available

We recently announced several new features. Beginning today, all Google Analytics accounts have access to the first of these features to be released: Site Search. It's currently only available if your language preference is set to English; it will be available in all languages soon.

Google Analytics has always shown you how people search to find your site. With Site Search, you can now see how people search your site once they are already on it. This is a goldmine of information because every time visitors search, they literally tell you in their own words what they are looking for. You'll not only see their initial searches, but how they attempted to refine searches when they didn't find what they were looking for. You'll see which pages they searched from and where they ended up. And you'll see how site search correlates with conversion and ecommerce activity. As we beta tested this feature, we became even more convinced of the value of having a search box on a site.

If you don't have a search box on your site yet, you might consider using the new Google Custom Search Engine (both free and paid versions are available). If you already have a site search solution, it is highly likely that our new Site Search reports will already work with it (including Google's GSA and Mini products).

The Site Search reports appear within the Content section. You'll need to enable Site Search to see the reports in the navigation.

Perhaps the easiest way to dive into the reports is to click Overview under Site Search and explore the links that appear on the right hand side of the report. (See the screenshot of links, above.)

For those who want to use the report navigation, the reports are broken down as follows. Overview is both a summary of site search activity and a jumping-off point to discover additional site search information. Usage allows you to compare visits that included site search against visits that did not include site search.

Search Terms shows you what people search for and how they attempt to refine unsuccessful searches. Start Pages and Destination Pages shows you where visitors begin their searches and where they end up. Categories shows you the product groups and areas on your site that visitors search. Trending allows you to track individual search metrics over time. The Segments menu, available in most reports, allows you to cross segment any group of searchers.

We have several new articles in our Help Center to help you get started like How do I set up Site Search for my profile? and How do I identify my search query parameter?.
You can click on the Common Questions link from any report to see Help articles related to Site Search. Finally, you may wish to read Avinash's excellent tutorial on the five things you should do with your site search data.