Avi Rappoport's taxonomy of search log junk
Great posting by Avi. The types she's come up with are:
- Empty queries
- Repeat queries
- Robot crawlers
- Server hacks
- Search form "guestbook" spam
- Internal testing queries
A book in progress by Louis Rosenfeld & Richard Wiggins. Publisher: Rosenfeld Media. Anticipated publication date: 2008
Any organization that has a searchable web site or intranet is sitting on top of hugely valuable and usually under-exploited data: logs that capture what users are searching for, how often each query was searched, and how many results each query retrieved. Search queries are gold: they are real data that show us exactly what users are searching for in their own words. This book shows you how to use search analytics to carry on a conversation with your customers: listen to and understand their needs, and improve your content, navigation and search performance to meet those needs.
“Search Analytics” Blog
Site search analytics in the NY TImes
From yesterday's New York Times article on nude vacationing:
SpaFinder.com, an online spa search engine, recently created a separate category for “nudist spa vacations” after noticing an increase in searches for the term. Since November, searches on SpaFinder.com for such trips have averaged about 720 a month—beating out “pet-friendly spas” (284) and “waxing services” (298).
Thanks to Alexandra Fox for the tip!
