Answers Reports - "Unknown" search term

Alyssa_Hubbard · July 2, 2020, 3:00pm

I am using an Answers report in Report Builder and I am seeing 600+ searches for the term “Unknown” – do we know why or what that means? I assume it is not the phrase “unknown” and this is a default.

See screenshot here:

Thanks,
Alyssa

Michael_Peralta · July 2, 2020, 4:19pm

Hey @Alyssa_Hubbard, thanks for your question!

This actually is the default behavior for any Searches that are initiated with a blank Search Term so in your example this means that 641 Searches were triggered with no Search Term entered.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Mike

henry_kremer · November 24, 2020, 12:57am

Hi Mike,

As a follow up I was curious how it would be possible for clicks to be attributed to unknown (blank) search terms in universal search if no results are displayed by default like they are in vertical search?

Michael_Peralta · November 30, 2020, 3:58pm

Currently it isn’t.

If you’re seeing Clicks related to an Unknown Search Term that means those searches were run from a Vertical Search not a Universal Search.

Hope this helps!

Mike

Tiffany_Mooney · January 19, 2023, 9:58pm

For these “Unknown” searches, would it be helpful if a client wanted to add structured data to those searches?

Alyssa_Hubbard · January 20, 2023, 10:51pm

Hi Tiffany,

I am not sure I understand your question entirely. Could you clarify? Do you mean setting up Default Initial Search?

Caroline_Bello1 · March 12, 2024, 5:09pm

Hi,

For customers that have allowblanksearch: false, who are still seeing Unknown Searches, what could that be attributed to? There is a default initial search query rule in place, but I’m unable to validate if that is the reason for the “unknown” searches.

Kristy_Huang · March 29, 2024, 3:56pm

Hi Caroline,

I saw that you got this answered internally, but I wanted to add the answer here in case anyone else is looking for it.

If the default initial search + query rule use an empty search, you must set allowEmptySearch: true. This would explain the unknown searches you are seeing. To test this, trigger the query rule (go to wherever the client is sending users to get that initial search) and then take a look at the search log to see if the search term comes up blank.

Perhaps the client has set allowEmptySearch: true for some vertical searches or universal search and set it to false for others. In this case, you could still see unknown searches for those that are set to true.