Testing frequently used search terms

Run searches report

As part of active content management of the site, popular search words and phrases should be actively reviewed to test whether users are likely finding the content they are searching for. The best way to do this is to run a report on frequently used searches.

• Admin > Reporting > Basic Reporting Tool > Searches tab
• Options:
  • Report on: Searches by keyword
  • Order by: Number of users, Descending
  • Choose Range: Last Quarter
• Click Generate Report Button
• Click 'save' report (so you can access it again later from the 'Saved Reports' tab)
• Click 'export'
• Copy and paste the text from the .tsv file into an Excel document

Test & comment

Search the site using the top search terms one by one and update your content / sections as required.

See the example below with notes on searches and what updates may need to be made. 

Sample Report

Action updates to improve search

Create new content

Some content may simply not exist. For example, many users were searching for 'pension' but getting no results. In this case a new page or content item should be created to deliver users what they need.

Update text and metadata

Some content may not include the keywords users are actually using to search. E.g. users were searching for 'staff awards', and therefore not finding the relevant page which was titled 'employee awards'.

• update the name of the item to include 'staff', e.g. Employee / Staff Awards
• add 'staff' and 'staff awards' to tags / metadata keywords for the item
• if Search Term Correction is active (see below), add 'employee awards' as a search term alternative for  'staff awards'

Ongoing

This is ongoing work which should be scheduled every quarter.

Search Term Correction

Manual corrections

Admin > Settings > Search > Search Term Correction

You can add manual corrections for search, so that when a common misspelled word is used, a 'Did you mean?' link with the correct term will display at the top of the search results.

You can also use manual corrections for when:

• a system name has changed, and you now wish for users to be directed to the new system
• staff use a colloquial term for searching

Global settings 

Ensure Search term Correction is turned on in global settings:

Boolean Operators - using AND or OR

Indexing & Weighting

Attributes / Class Fields in content templates

Attributes can be weighted according to their importance in search. This is done per content type.

• Admin menu > Content > Templates
• Choose a content template
• Click on 'class fields',  'value attributes' or 'text attributes'
• For all fields  and attributes you wish to be included/indexed in search, tick Quick Search
• In addition to ticking Quick Search, you can also tick the following to apply weighting:
  • Is Keyword > high weighting
  • Is Description (attributes only) > medium weighting (also used for feature piece functionality and email tokens)
  • Is Content (attributes only) > indexed in search with standard weighting
• Save

Sections and section pages

Global settings

• Go to Admin > Global Settings > Index community name as keyword for community pages
• Tick checkbox to index section name as keyword for individual section pages

Section settings

Add metadata keywords and descriptions to be indexed within search, but without appearing on the section itself:

• Go to the section you wish to update
• Admin > Edit Page > Edit Settings
• Add a summary of the section to the "Description" field"
• Add key search terms to the "Keywords" field

Page settings

Add metadata keywords and descriptions to be indexed within search, but without appearing on the page itself:

• Go to the section/pages you wish to update
• Admin > Edit Page > Pages list
• Click 'Edit' next to a page heading
• Add a summary of the page to the "Description" field"
• Add key search terms to the "Keywords" field