Your site search might have a problem if users have to guess …

Symptom: Your search engine makes the user guess at the right term — without feedback

 

Listen, I actually like playing the game 20 Questions.  I find that I do that a lot with the Internet Search engines (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.)  I really don’t mind.  I think that’s because I realize that the universe of information that these search utilities bring together and make accessible via a search interface is so diverse.  It’s a marvel that it works really and testament to the companies making it work.  .Well, I suppose I did get irritated a little with the “faucet” search I wrote about earlier … but it wasn’t too bad.

 

What really gets me is when I go to a company’s website and find that I have to know THEIR wording in order to find anything via their site search.   This isn’t just a matter of using synonyms.  Sometimes there are idioms and phrases that need to be linked together.  I wonder how many customers leave a site and go to a competitor’s website when they don’t find anything because they used the “wrong” search terms.   I want to write them and say, “Guys, how often do you check your search logs and see what search statements aren’t returning many or any hits?”    There are search engines that will “translate,” if you will, search terms from what a user enters into terms that you use on your site.   Sometimes this is done automatically – especially with common misspellings.   Sometimes it requires manual intervention based on examination of the log files.

 

Read other ways to know if your internal site search engine has a problem…