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Merge pull request #7817 from GSA/fix-legacy-imgs
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Update 2016-10-21-dear-search-reading-between-the-lines-of-search-dat…
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ToniBonittoGSA authored Jul 26, 2024
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Expand Up @@ -27,7 +27,9 @@ And finally, do you have a formal method of evaluating the search experience tha

Best,

UX Vexed {{< legacy-img src="2016/08/600-x-400-Search-bar-on-virtual-screen-Gajus-iStock-Thinkstock-178761722.jpg" alt="Search bar on virtual screen." caption="" >}}
UX Vexed

{{< legacy-img src="2016/08/600-x-400-Search-bar-on-virtual-screen-Gajus-iStock-Thinkstock-178761722.jpg" alt="Search bar on virtual screen." caption="Gajus/iStock/Thinkstock" >}}

Dear Vexed,

Expand All @@ -45,16 +47,15 @@ There is a line of thinking that says if a site is designed optimally, then <a h

<a href="https://search.gov" target="_blank">DigitalGov Search</a>, like any search tool worth its salt, provides robust search analytics. We give views into to the top <a href="http://search.digitalgov.gov/manual/queries.html" target="_blank">queries</a> your site gets and the <a href="http://search.digitalgov.gov/manual/clicks.html" target="_blank">top pages clicked on</a> out of your results pages. We also provide click-through rates for all queries: for all the times a query was run, how many clicks did that search results page get? You can see this for the top queries, or you can search for a particular term and see all the queries that contain that term.

{{< legacy-img src="2016/09/Queries-USA_gov-600w.png" alt="Screenshot of DigitalGov Search report on the top queries performed on USA.gov" >}}

{{< legacy-img src="2016/09/Queries_-_USA_gov-600w.png" alt="Screenshot of DigitalGov Search report on the top queries performed on USA.gov" >}}

A really low click-through rate, or one well above 100%, is a sign that some sort of change would be helpful to searchers, but what that change is will depend on what they were looking for.

Does a particular page need to be boosted in the search results, or do you need to respond to queries on a jargony keyword? Then <a href="http://search.digitalgov.gov/manual/best-bets.html" target="_blank">setting up a Best Bet</a> in our Admin Center may be your answer. Or does the page need a plain language rewrite? A click-through rate over 100% means that searchers are, on average, clicking on the same results page a bunch of times, finding results that look promising, but then the content doesn’t end up serving their needs. This kind of bouncing is called <a href="https://www.nngroup.com/articles/pogo-sticking/" target="_blank">pogo sticking</a> &#8211; fun for kids, frustrating for searchers. It could indicate your site has a lot of similar-looking content on a given topic that could benefit from disambiguating the page titles.

The next important question is: Where were the searchers when they ran a particular query? I’ve seen cases where a query was run directly from a page that, from the look of the url, should have contained the information the person was looking for. In our <a href="http://search.digitalgov.gov/manual/referrers.html" target="_blank">referrers</a> report you can see the pages where the most queries were run on your site, and from there you can see all the queries that were run on any particular page. This is a gold mine for determining whether it’s your search configuration or your site content &#8211; or structure! &#8211; that needs tweaking.

{{< legacy-img src="2016/09/Referrers-USA_gov-600w.png" alt="The DigitalGov Search Top Referring URLs report, showing the pages on which people most frequently used the search box." >}}
{{< legacy-img src="2016/09/Referrers_-_USA_gov-600w.png" alt="The DigitalGov Search Top Referring URLs report, showing the pages on which people most frequently used the search box." >}}

Because the relationships between all these data points can be complex, we gave a webinar in December 2015 on analytics. Michelle Chronister, the former user experience team lead for USAgov, described how that team looks at search data for trends that can guide USAgov’s content strategy. They group query terms into topics, and analyze at the topic level. A <a href="https://digital.gov/2016/01/08/what-are-your-customers-searching-for/>">webinar recap</a> is available that includes a video recording, slide deck, and data tracking/report template as well as an infographic of USAgov’s 2015 search traffic.

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