All guidesSearch insights — what customers looked for

Search insights — what customers looked for

Every word typed into your search box, especially the ones that found nothing — the most honest page you own.

5 min readUpdated 14 Sep 2026

In this guide

Search Insightsshows what customers typed into your website’s search box — and, more usefully, what found nothing. Those empty searches are people who wanted to buy and left. This guide shows you how to read the list and fix the three things that cause it.

The most honest page in your dashboard

Analytics tells you how many people came. Search Insights tells you what they wanted — in their own words. Someone who types a word into your search box has already decided to buy something; they are just looking for it.

Example · Deepak, a hardware shop in Nagpur

His top empty search was “drill machine” — 34 times in a month. He sells drills; he had listed them as “rotary hammer”. One spelling rule later, those 34 searches land on his ₹4,200 drill. Nothing was wrong with his shop except the word.

3×How much likelier a searcher is to buy than a browser
0Products a 'found nothing' search shows — and the visitor usually leaves
1 ruleFixes every future spelling of the same word

Reading the list

Open Search Insights from your sidebar.

What customers typed into your search box — including what found nothing.
What customers typed into your search box — including what found nothing. — phone view
  1. 1What they typedEvery word customers put into your search box.
  2. 2The goldSearches that returned nothing are real demand you are not meeting.
What customers typed into your search box — including what found nothing.
  • Most searched — your customers’ own vocabulary. Use these exact words in your product names.
  • Found nothing — the list to act on. Red rows.
  • By customers — searches from people who signed in, so you can see who wanted what.
  • Searches per day — whether people use search at all on your site.

Switch the period with Today / 7 days / 30 days / All time. Hide half-typed words removes the noise of people mid-typing.

Every empty search has one of three causes

They spelt it differentlyAdd a spelling fix
You call the product something elsePoint the word at the products
You genuinely don't sell itStock it — or you now know the demand
  1. Open 'Found nothing'Sorted by how often
  2. Ask which of the threeSpelling, wording, or stock
  3. Fix it onceA rule, or a product edit
  4. Every future search landsIncluding the misspelt ones

Fixing a spelling

1

Find the red row

In Found nothing, pick the word people typed — say “chapal”.

2

Press Fix spelling

Enter what it should mean — “chappal”. From now on, both spellings find the same products.

Indian shoppers search in Hinglish and in several spellings of the same word. Your site already understands hundreds of common ones (kurti, chappal, mobile cover) — spelling rules are for the words specific to your trade.

Pointing a word at specific products

Sometimes nothing is misspelt — the customer’s word simply is not in your product name. “gift” finds nothing even though half your shop would make a fine gift.

1

Press Choose products on that search

Pick the products that word should bring up.

2

Save

Anyone searching that word now sees exactly those products, in the order you chose.

This is also how you push a seasonal set: point “rakhi” or “diwali” at your festival range for a few weeks, then remove the rule.

When you genuinely don’t sell it

This is the most valuable case and the one owners ignore. Forty people a month searching for something you do not stock is a free market survey — with a number attached.

Before you order stock on a hunch, open this page. “Nobody asks for it” and “22 people asked last month” are very different decisions.

Common questions

My list is empty.

Either your site is new, or customers are not finding your search box. Make sure the search icon shows in your header — see Header & Footer.

Does this include Google searches?

No — this is only your own site’s search box. For what people typed into Google before landing on you, see the Google tab on the Grow page.

Can I download the list?

Yes, the CSV button exports the current period.

Do spelling fixes work on the whole site or only search?

Only the search box. Category pages and menus are unaffected.

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