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Search analytics show test or complex queries

Problem description

During testing, debugging or monitoring, test or complex queries may be sent to your search index, logged, and appear in reports. Examples may look like the following:

!nullquery
!showallresults
polling query test
+v:coriolanus f:key a:"william shakespeare"
fun*

While these queries may be syntactically correct and valid, they may be adding unnecessary noise to your reports and prevent you from identifying real users' search behaviour.

Solutions

  • Consider adding known test or polling queries to the reporting blacklist or reporting stop words configuration. If a polling or monitoring service has been configured, it’s IP address should also be added to the reporting blacklist.

  • Consider separating system-generated queries and constraints from user-generated queries at query time with the use of the, s, smeta and squery syntax. System-generated queries and constraints are not displayed in search analytics reports.

  • Consider using a separate profile for the sole use of system-generated queries, and possibly disabling logging on the profile by setting the following in the padre_opts.cfg:

    -log=off