21 Dec 09 problems google analytics
In a companion article, "How to Gain Keyword Insight from Searches within Your Site," you learned that site search data can be very useful to help you get better Paid Search and SEO results. Configure Google Analytics as described in that article. After waiting a couple of days to gather the data, login and take a look at the site search report. What if you find the data really surprising?
There are three primary problems that occur with site search data. In each case the data is incorrect, but often in subtle ways. Even if you've been using site search for a while, it's worth checking to make sure you're not accidentally running into these and looking at skewed data as a consequence.
Problem 1. Nobody Seems to Be Using Site Search
You may have setup site search in Google Analytics, but the data shows that nobody uses site search. Could that be true?
First make sure your site search works. Try a phrase that's unique and nobody else would type in. (I often use "rhubarb." Pick your own.) Within the search results page, view the HTML source and check to be sure that the JavaScript appears on the page. Forgetting to add JavaScript for Google Analytics is one of the most common mistakes.
There's a related problem where the results page is for searches with zero results is different from the results pages that do contain results. Make sure the JavaScript tracking code is included in both pages, because you want to know about those searches that yielded no pages. It is very valuable data.
Problem 2. Numbers Are Showing as Keywords
A second problem might be data showing up, but the top keywords in the report appear to be numbers like 1, 2 and 3 -- or the report contains unbelievably long number strings.
Probably site search is picking up the page numbers from your search results page or a session ID. Most likely when you configured Google Analytics for site search you chose the wrong parameter name for the search keyword or perhaps chose several different parameters.
Google Analytics permits you to specify up to five different parameters for site search. It's tempting to grab all the parameters you see in the results page URL and shove them into the Google Analytics configuration screen. That's almost certainly going to get you into trouble and produce lots of data that don't represent real search keywords. Only rarely do you need to give Google Analytics more than a single site search parameter.
About the Author:
