improving site search with search analytics
DESCRIPTION
My presentation from UX Camp Europe 2013 in BerlinTRANSCRIPT
Improving site search with search analytics
Audun RundbergJune 22nd, 2013
#uxce13
@audunru
Be just as good as Google - in 3 small steps:
1. Index everything you want to search
2. Design a search form:
3. Show the best results first when people search on your site
Search!
Is it that simple?
Photo: Google
Photo: Google
Photo: Google
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
B38,4%
C34,3%
F3,9%
E8,1%
D3,9%
A3,3%
1,6% 1,6% 1,6%1,6%
1,6%
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
ContentLinksDomain historyUser behaviourSocial media sharing
Google vs You
Google• Billions of documents• User behaviour data from
hundreds of millions of users• 50.000+ employees
Your search engine• 100-100.000 documents• Probably not used very much• 0-1 employees
Big country
Big websites
Bigger countryEven
biggerwebsites
#1 Check your search results
When users search your site, they’re telling you in their own words
what they want from your organization. In Search Analytics for Your Site,
Lou Rosenfeld shows you how to harvest and analyze search query
data to improve your site’s search performance, content, navigation,
metadata, effectiveness, and overall user experience.
“If we all agree that user feedback will improve any site’s user experience, why aren’t we spending more time with the actual words our audience uses when asking us for stuff? I can’t imagine a more experienced guide than Lou Rosenfeld to help us put this amazing data to work.”
JEFFREY VEEN Founder & CEO, Typekit
“Search Analytics for Your Site lays out pretty much everything you need to know to mine your query data and convert it into a positive customer experience.”
ERIC T. PETERSON Founder and Author, Web Analytics Demystified
“Lou Rosenfeld’s Search Analytics for Your Site is a superlative work from the initial story to the final chapter on bridging web analytics and UX practice. Great book!”
CHAUNCEY WILSON Senior Manager, User Research
“This is one of those rare books that makes me pound the table with my fist and yell, ‘Yes! Exactly! Awesome!’ while I’m reading it.”
KRISTINA HALVORSON CEO, Brain Traffic and author, Content Strategy for the Web
www.rosenfeldmedia.com
MORE ON SE ARCH ANALY TICS FOR YOUR SITEwww.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/searchanalytics/
S E A R C H A N A LY T I C S F O R Y O U R S I T E Conversations with Your Customers
b y LO U I S R O S E N F E L D
forewords by Steve Krug and Avinash Kaushik
SEAR
CH
ANALY
TICS FOR
YOU
R SITE
by LOU
IS RO
SENFELD
Most common queries
0
62,5
125
187,5
250
1 9 17 25 33 41 49 57 65 73 81 89 97 105 113 121 129 137 145 153 161 169 177 185 193 201 209 217 225 233 241 249
Top 50 queries: 10% of searches
50 of 23,252 total queries: 0,2%
PPM
PPM
5. place... Good enough?
Query Best result
vacancies 1sia 2ppm 4plane tickets 24travel 3Average 6,8
Old – Jan 31 New – Jan 31 New – Feb 22 New – Apr 170
2,5
5
7,5
10
4,2
9,3
1,74 1,27
Average position of best result
Most common queries1. Find the 50 most used queries in your search statistics, or as
many as you have time for2. Perform a search for each query3. Decide which result is the best4. Write down the position of the best result5. Calculate the average6. Repeat from time to time
Google Docs spreadsheethttp://bit.ly/uxce2013-search
Long tail queries
Take 100 randomly selected queries
«Long tail» queries1. Take 100 randomly selected queries from the «long tail» 2. Categorise them3. Perform a search for each query4. Decide which result is the best5. Write down the position of the best result6. Calculate the average7. Repeat from time to time
Relevance
How to measure1. Find the 50 most used queries in your search statistics, or as
many as you have time for2. Perform a search for each query3. Rate the five first results from A to C
A. Perfect resultB. Not perfect, but the user will get to the right pageC. Irrelevant
RelevanceQuery Result #1 Result #2 Result #3 Result #4 Result #5 Relevance
(strict)Relevance (less strict)
mesys A B B B B 20 % 100 %
glasses A B C C C 20 % 40 %
cell phone A C B B B 20 % 80 %
Average 20 % 73 %
#2 Improve your search results
Photo: !ickr.com/kendo26
«hytte»«company cabin»
Result 1 - 66.762 points:Date: 923 pointsIA: 60.000 pointsWord matches: 66 pointsTitle matches etc.: 5773 points
Result 2 - 62.637 points:Date: 946 pointsIA: 56.000 pointsWord matches: 31 pointsTitle matches etc.: 5660 points
Remove irrelevant results
• Front page• Admin pages• Different views of the same
page (e.g. screen and print versions)
• Duplicates
Metadata matches
• Results that match the user profile property «Location» get a higher score
• Also good for filters
Rewrite content
• «training» instead of «competence-increasing measures»
Use synonyms
• Create a company-specific list of synonyms that your search engine doesn’t already know about
Adjust the algorithm
• Title match is more important than a text match
Boost individual results
• Quick solution if a common search query gives bad results
• You need a plan for how to review manual changes
Give unimportant content a negative boost
• Older news articles or archived content receives a negative boost
Buy a new and more expensive search engine that will solve all your problemsLet me know if you find one!
Thank you!