Track Zero Search Results In Google Analytics

Congratulations! If you’re here, you’ve just set up a new search tool, or you’re about to connect it to your website for the first time. You’ve made it much easier for visitors to navigate your website.

But here comes the next step: do you know what people are searching for, and finding? Or worse, what they’re not finding?

Why site search analytics matter

Search is often a visitor’s last resort when they can’t find what they’re looking for. If you don’t have what they’re searching for, they’re likely to get frustrated and leave your website, never to return.

But if you track what visitors search for, and which results perform best, you can use that data to improve your site and turn more visitors into customers. Here’s what that can look like:

Well, enough talk. Let’s look at how to track zero search results in Google Analytics with your own search engine, and then how easy it is with Cludo.

Step 1: Turn on site search in Google Analytics 4

First, turn on site search tracking in GA4. Log in to your Google Analytics account and follow these steps:

1. Open Admin from the bottom-left menu.
   AdminData collection and modificationData streams
2. Choose your web data stream, the one for the website you want to track.
3. Open Enhanced measurement settings by clicking the gear icon.
4. Turn on Site search, then click Show advanced settings.
5. Add your search query parameter if it isn’t one of GA4’s defaults (q, s, search, query, keyword), then save.

Your query parameter is the part of your search URL that holds what the visitor typed. For example, in yoursite.com/search?q=pricing, the parameter is q.

Once site search is on, GA4 records a view_search_results event with the visitor’s search term every time someone searches. You’ll find it under Reports › Engagement › Events.

Step 2: Track zero search results

Now that GA4 knows what people search for, we just need to tell it when a search doesn’t return any results.

The way to track zero results in GA4 is with a custom event. Usually, when a visitor searches and gets no results, your search page shows a message like “Sorry, no results were found.” Find the element that holds that message, and give it an ID:

<h2 id="zeroSearchResultsContainer">Sorry, no results were found</h2>

Add an ID to the element that holds your “no results” message.

Then add a short script to your search results page. If the no-results message is on the page, the script grabs the search term from the URL and sends it to GA4 as an event:

// Add to your search results page, after the GA4 tag
document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {
  // 1. Only run when the "no results" message is on the page
  if (!document.getElementById('zeroSearchResultsContainer')) return;

  // 2. Get the search term from the URL
  var param = 'q'; // change to your search query parameter
  var query = location.search || location.hash.split('?')[1] || '';
  var term = new URLSearchParams(query).get(param) || '(blank)';

  // 3. Send a GA4 event with the search term
  gtag('event', 'search_no_results', { no_results_term: term });
});

Using Google Tag Manager instead? Replace the last line with dataLayer.push({ event: 'search_no_results', no_results_term: term }); and send it to GA4 with a GA4 event tag.

Notice that we’re looking for an element with the ID zeroSearchResultsContainer, and a URL parameter called q. If the element is on the page, the search had no results, so we send an event to Google Analytics. The script also checks the part of the URL after a #, since some search tools put the query there.

Finally, tell GA4 about your new data so you can see it in reports:

1. Create a custom dimension for the search term, with the scope set to Event and the event parameter no_results_term.
   AdminData displayCustom definitions
2. Build a report in Explore: add your new dimension and the Event count metric, and filter by the event name search_no_results.
   ExploreFree form

That’s it! You can now see every search that produces zero results, and how often it happens. Learn more about events in Google’s GA4 events guide.

Google Analytics integration for Cludo

If you use Cludo, you already have a detailed search analytics dashboard, including searches without results. If you also want your search data in Google Analytics, it doesn’t get much easier:

1. Turn on the integration in MyCludo by switching on Send data to Google Analytics, then save.
   ConfigurationData settings
2. Add custom dimensions in GA4 for the parameters Cludo sends, with the scope set to Event: q_cludoResultCount (number of results), q_cludoPage (results page), and any facets, like q_cludoCategory.
3. See your searches under Reports › Engagement › Events › view_search_results. To find zero-result searches, filter where q_cludoResultCount is 0.

Prefer Google Tag Manager? You can send Cludo’s search data through GTM instead. Find the full setup in the Cludo Help Center.