Search Destination Page – New Google Analytics metric that gives insights about your internal search engine

A new metric has appeared in Google Analytics this week, that being “Search Destination Page”

Previously we have “start page” and “destination page”, the latter being the page the results show on, which for most is the search results page. Now we have a new metric/ report which is available by locating the pages report (Behavior: Site Search: pages) and clicking the “Search Destination Page” link as the primary dimension.

Google Analytics search page

Similar to most reports the results show in the data view, can be switched to other views, can be segmented, can be exported etc etc.

Google Analytics search destination page

Help! My search page still comes top

You will notice in my screen shot the search page again comes top. Fear not, the reason for this is because when setting up the search we ticked “Strip query parameters out of URL” so the reality is this entry is a combination of filtered searches, refinement searches etc.

Google Analytics query parameter (from view settings admin page)

I also have a un-touched view for my GA property (as you all should have)  with the “Strip query parameters out of URL” unticked. Looking at this report through this view, normal service is resumed with genuine “destination pages” featuring at the top

Insights

To get real insights you need to add “search term” or “start page” as a secondary dimension. Now you can map results clicked to the order they appear helping you with improving you search algorithm. Understanding start page can bring insight on what to add to that page they searched from (was content/ links missing? have we under-optimized/ over-optimized SEO bringing the wrong user to the page…)