Reporting on site searches in GA4 & Looker Studio

How to make the GA4 view_search_results event more useful. In this video, we’ll add a metric to GA4 so we can report on site searches in Looker Studio, and we'll create a custom site search report in GA4. You’ll also learn how to configure a calculated field in Looker Studio so you can make your site search keywords link to actual search results on your website!

[@moritzschmitz-justen3734]

First of all, thank you for this useful video. It worked just fine with one exception. If I use the LOWER Function, it does convert all search terms to lower case but it apparently doesn't do deduplication. It show multiple terms - all written in lower case - but as if these were different searches. Is there a function to really deduplicate/ consolidate these search terms?

[@Twooctobers]

Ah - I think I forgot to apply the LOWER() function to the search term in the url - it should be HYPERLINK(CONCAT("xyz.com/?s=",LOWER(Search term)),LOWER(Search term)) - does that fix it?

[@moritzschmitz-justen3734]

@@Twooctobers Thanks. Fixed!

[@JoachimTranberg]

I found this video during my research for a problem. I need to figure out a way of seeing which search_terms that leads to conversions I need to have search_terms as a dimension with the following metrics: count, conversions, conversion rate, revenue I cant figure out how to do it. Do you have any idea?

[@Twooctobers]

I figured out how to do conversions: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j5m0eJ-qrt9-gck I don't think there's a way to tie revenue to search terms in reporting/explorations, but it would be possible in BigQuery.

[@History-Women]

Hi! Do you have any idea how to track the conversion rate on a search term? I'd like to optimize site search, but I need results before & after i've made adjustments. Please do let me know, all the purchase and conversion metrics don't work in these reports.

[@Twooctobers]

Someone else asked this same question - it's a bit weird, but yes: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j5m0eJ-qrt9-gck

[@hamalishah]

Hi there, Your tutorial has really helped me in my work but I would like to know how can i get the "Search Term", as I don't see it in my fields in Looker Studio. It doesn't appear in the Data. Please help me.

[@Twooctobers]

Try going to Resource > Manage added data sources, then click to EDIT your GA4 data source, then REFRESH FIELDS (lower left). Google added Search term as a dimension to the GA4 data source in June, so it may just need refreshing.

[@hamalishah]

@@Twooctobers I highly appreciate your quick response. I did refresh but couldn't find "Search Term" as a Dimension

[@Twooctobers]

Hmm, that's odd - as a workaround you can create a custom "Search term" dimension, event-scoped, populated by the search_term event parameter. Unfortunately, it will only start collecting data after you set it up.

[@mlcsudesign1722]

@@Twooctobers Thanks this has been really helpful