Search analytics show test or complex queries

Problem description

For system-generated search requests, and 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

  • Add known test or polling query terms to the reporting blacklist or reporting stop words configuration. If a polling or monitoring service has been configured, the IP address of the monitoring service should also be added to the reporting blacklist.

  • Separate system-generated queries and constraints from user-generated queries at query time by using system queries. System-generated queries and constraints are not displayed in search analytics reports.

  • Use a separate results page for system-style search results page (e.g. where Funnelback’s index might be used to populate browse functionality that is integrated into a website), and possibly also disable logging on the results page by setting the following in the results page configuration:

    -log=off