Where to Find On-Site Search Data in Google Analytics 4?

Your website's search bar is one of the most honest feedback tools you have. When visitors type something into it, they are telling you in their own words exactly what they want. This article will show you step-by-step where to find this valuable on-site search data in GA4 and how to turn those insights into actionable improvements for your business.

First, What Is On-Site Search and Why Does It Matter?

On-site search refers to the search functionality on your own website, allowing users to find content, products, or information without manually navigating through your menus. Tapping into this data is like getting a direct look into your audience's mind. It's a goldmine for understanding user intent.

Unlike keyword data from search engines, which tells you how people find your site, on-site search data tells you what they do after they arrive. Analyzing these queries helps you:

• Discover Content Gaps: See what topics users are searching for that you don’t have content about. If dozens of people are searching for "how to integrate with Shopify" and you don't have a guide for it, you’ve just found your next blog post idea.
• Improve Website Navigation: If people frequently search for "pricing" or "contact info," it might mean those essential pages are too hard to find in your main navigation.
• Optimize Your Language: Pay attention to the exact phrasing people use. You might call a feature "Automated Cohort Analysis," but if your users are searching for "easy user groups," you should probably incorporate their language into your copy to make it more relatable.
• Identify New Product or Feature Opportunities: For e-commerce sites, searches for products you don't carry can reveal demand and guide inventory decisions. For SaaS companies, it can reveal features customers wish you had.

In short, this data eliminates guesswork. It replaces "I think our users want..." with "I know our users are looking for..."

How to Set Up Site Search Tracking in GA4

Before you can find any data, you need to make sure Google Analytics is actually tracking it. The good news is that GA4 makes this much simpler than Universal Analytics did. Much of the time, it works right out of the box with "Enhanced measurement."

Step 1: Check Your Enhanced Measurement Settings

Enhanced measurement is a feature in GA4 that automatically collects certain common events without you needing to add any extra code. Site search tracking is one of them.

Here’s how to check if it’s enabled:

1. Navigate to the Admin section of your GA4 property (the gear icon in the bottom-left corner).
2. Under the Property column, click on Data Streams.
3. Select the appropriate data stream for your website.
4. Under the Events section, you'll see a heading for Enhanced measurement. Make sure the toggle is switched on.
5. Click the gear icon on the right to see the specific events being tracked. Ensure that Site search is one of them.

If it’s on, GA4 is already listening for the view_search_results event, which is triggered every time a user performs a search on your site.

Step 2: Verify Your Search Query Parameter

How does GA4 know what users are searching for? It looks for a query parameter in the URL after a search is performed.

For example, if you search for "summer sale" on a website, the URL might look something like this:

www.yourstore.com/search?q=summer+sale

In this case, "q" is the query parameter. GA4 automatically recognizes several common parameters by default, including:

• q
• s
• search
• query
• keyword

Most modern website platforms (like WordPress, Shopify, etc.) use one of these, so it often just works automatically. To find yours, just perform a test search on your own website and look at the URL that is generated.

What If Your Website Uses a Different Parameter?

If your website's search URL uses a less common parameter, like ?search_term=analytics, you need to tell GA4 where to look.

You can do this in the same Enhanced measurement settings:

1. Go back to Admin → Data Streams → [Your Stream].
2. Click the gear icon to open the Enhanced measurement settings.
3. Find the Site search section and click Show advanced settings.
4. In the Search Term Query Parameters box, enter the parameter your site uses (e.g., search_term). If there are multiple, separate them with commas.
5. Click Save.

Once this is configured, GA4 will correctly capture the search terms and associate them with the view_search_results event.

Where to Find Your On-Site Search Data in GA4

Now that you're sure the data is being collected, let's find it. There isn’t a dedicated, pre-built "Site Search" report like there was in Universal Analytics. Instead, you'll find the information inside other reports or, even better, build your own powerful analysis in the Explore section.

Method 1: Using the Standard Reports (The Quick Look)

For a fast, high-level overview, you can use the built-in Events report. This is good for a quick check, but it's not the best for deep analysis.

1. From the left-hand navigation, go to Reports → Engagement → Events.
2. This will show you a table of all the events being collected in your GA4 property.
3. Find and click on the event named view_search_results in the table.

After clicking on it, a new detail page for that event will open. On this page, you'll see cards with different data points. The one you want is labeled search_term. This card will display a list of the most frequent search terms on your site and how many times each was searched in the selected date range. While useful, it's quite basic and doesn't allow for much customization.

Method 2: Building a Custom Report in "Explore" (The Powerful Way)

The real power of GA4 lies in the Explore section. Here you can build fully customized reports to get the exact insights you need. Let's create a simple but highly effective on-site search report from scratch.

Step-by-Step Guide to Your Custom Site Search Report:

1. Open Explore: From the left-hand menu, click on Explore and then start a new Blank exploration.
2. Import Your Dimensions: Dimensions are the "what" you want to analyze. In the Variables column on the left, click the plus icon (+) next to the Dimensions header. Search for and import the following:

• Search term (This is the most important one.)
• Page path and screen class (To see which page the search was made from.)
• Device category (To see if mobile and desktop search behaviors differ.)

1. Import Your Metrics: Metrics are the numbers you want to measure. Click the plus icon (+) next to the Metrics header. Search for and import:

• Event count (This will count how many times each search happened.)
• Total users (To see how many unique users searched for a term.)
• Conversions (Crucial for seeing if searches lead to valuable actions.)

1. Build the Report: Now, drag and drop the dimensions and metrics you imported from the Variables column into the Tab Settings column to create your table.

• Drag Search term into the Rows section.
• Drag Event count into the Values section.
• Drag Total users into the Values section.
• Drag Conversions into the Values section.

1. Filter for Search Events: Right now, your 'event count' metric is counting all events. You need to tell GA4 to only count site search events.

• Scroll down to the Filters section at the bottom of the Tab Settings column.
• Drag the Event name dimension into the filter box.
• Set the filter condition to "exactly matches" and in the value field, enter view_search_results.
• Click Apply.

You’ll now have a clean, detailed table showing every term searched on your site, how many times it was searched, by how many users, and whether those searches led to conversions. This Exploration report is infinitely more valuable than the simple view in the standard reports and can be saved for future use.

Putting Your On-Site Search Data into Action

Finding the data is only half the battle. The real value comes from turning it into action. With your new custom report, here's what to look for:

Look for High-Volume Searches with No Results

One of the biggest wins is finding things people are looking for that don't exist yet. Sort your table by Event count (descending) and look at the top terms. Are there any surprises? If you run a marketing blog and see hundreds of searches for "AI content creation tools," but you haven’t written about it - that's a clear signal from your audience to create that content.

Check for Navigational-Intent Searches

If your top searched terms include "login," "pricing," "support," or the names of major product categories, it's a sign that your main website navigation might be confusing. These are things users should be able to find with a single click from the homepage, not by resorting to the search bar.

Discover the Language of Your Customer

How do you describe your product or service? Now compare that to how your users are searching for it. They might search for "cheap shipping" while your site talks about "cost-effective delivery solutions." Adapting your website copy to reflect the exact words your audience uses can significantly improve resonance and conversion rates.

Troubleshoot Product Search Problems

For e-commerce, this report is invaluable. Are users searching for a popular product but your conversions are low for that term? This could indicate a problem with the search result itself. Perhaps the search function is pulling up the wrong item, or the product page that it links to is poorly designed. It prompts you to conduct that search yourself and experience what the customer is experiencing.

Final Thoughts

Analyzing on-site search data in GA4 is one of the most direct ways to understand what your visitors actually want from you. By setting up tracking correctly and building a simple custom Exploration, you unlock a powerful feedback loop that can guide your content strategy, improve user experience, and ultimately drive more conversions.

While building these custom reports in GA4 is powerful, we know that constantly having to recreate them or piece together insights with data from other apps like your CRM or ad platforms can be a manual chore. At Graphed you can connect directly to your Google Analytics account and other data sources. You can simply ask questions in plain English — like "show me the top 10 on-site search terms last month and their conversion rates" — and get an interactive dashboard built for you in seconds, saving you from the hands-on drag-and-drop process.