Imagine visiting an online store because you need a specific product. You know what you’re looking for, but the website gives you no easy way to find it. You could spend several minutes clicking through categories, or simply head back to Google and find another store.
Most visitors would probably choose the second option.
That’s what poor website search usability can cost your business. Even when you have what someone wants, a search experience that delivers irrelevant results, misses products or makes navigation difficult can send potential customers elsewhere.
In this guide, we’ll look at five common website search problems that frustrate visitors and drive them away. We’ll also cover practical design improvements and ways to test whether your internal search is helping people find what they need.
Why Do Visitors Abandon Website Search?
Several internal website search problems can frustrate visitors and drive them away. Let’s look at five common ones and how you can fix them.
1. Zero Results for a Simple Spelling Mistake
A shopper types “sneekers” into your search bar, but your website returns nothing. They meant to search for “sneakers,” but your search engine doesn’t recognise the misspelling.
As a result, the shopper might assume you don’t sell sneakers and leave. Your website needs typo tolerance, which allows its search engine to recognise words even when visitors make small spelling mistakes. This feature is often called fuzzy matching.
To check whether your search supports it, search for five popular products using slightly misspelt names. If your website returns no results, visitors could be running into the same problem.
2. Exact-Match Rules That Miss Obvious Synonyms
In the same way, imagine a Brisbane shopper searching for “thongs” on your website. But you’ve labelled those products as “flip flops.” If your search engine only looks for exact matches, those products won’t appear, even though you sell exactly what the shopper wants.
But first, you need to know which terms your customers use. Check your website’s search reports for queries that return no results, then compare those terms with the names in your product catalogue. Then add relevant alternatives to your synonym list so visitors can find the right products regardless of which term they use.
3. Results Sorted by Date Instead of Relevance
We often see site owners make this mistake: they prioritise publication dates over how closely a page matches the search query. This can push an older buying guide below a recently published news post, even when the guide answers the visitor’s question.
Visitors rarely want to sort through several pages to find the most useful result. If your best match sits near the bottom, they might assume your website doesn’t have the information they need.
To prevent this, make website search relevance the default sorting method so the pages that best match a search appear first. You can still offer publication date as an optional sorting filter for visitors who prefer newer content.
Test this by searching for your 10 most common queries and checking whether the most useful results appear near the top. This way, visitors can find relevant information without having to dig through less useful pages.
4. Empty “No Results” Pages With No Next Step
A bare “No results found” message leaves visitors with nowhere to go. They can’t find what they searched for, and your website offers no help with finding an alternative.
Instead of showing visitors a dead end, your website can offer other ways to continue searching. For example, suggest a corrected spelling, display related search terms, recommend popular categories or provide a link to your support team. These suggestions give visitors another chance to find what they need without starting over elsewhere.
5. Slow Pages That Reload for Every Filter Change
Imagine browsing an online store with hundreds of products. You select a price range to narrow down the results, but instead of updating the product list, the entire page reloads. You then select another filter and have to wait all over again. This gets frustrating quickly, especially when you’re shopping on a phone with a slow internet connection.
The problem often comes down to how your website handles search filters. Instead of refreshing the entire page after every selection, it can update the results in place while keeping the rest of the page intact. This makes filtering feel faster and lets visitors browse without repeated interruptions.
But how do you know whether your website responds quickly enough? Google uses a metric called Interaction to Next Paint (INP) to measure how quickly a page responds to user interactions, such as clicks and taps. A good INP score is 200 milliseconds (0.2 seconds) or less, according to Google’s guidance.
You can check your website’s responsiveness by selecting different search filters on a mid-range mobile device and measuring how quickly the results update. If those interactions take too long, visitors may experience the same frustrating delays.
How to Design a Website Search Bar That Visitors Can Actually Use
Even the best search functionality won’t help visitors who can’t find your search bar. Its placement, size and design all influence how easily people can start searching.
A few small design choices can make your search bar easier to spot and use. The table below covers four common issues and how to address them.
| Design choice | What goes wrong | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Search icon hidden in a menu | Visitors might overlook the search function, especially on mobile | Keep search visible in the header or navigation |
| Generic placeholder text | Visitors don’t know what they can search for | Use helpful examples such as “Search shoes, sizes or brands” |
| Narrow search input | Longer queries become difficult to read | Make the input wide enough to display longer search terms |
| No autocomplete suggestions | Visitors have to type entire queries and guess the right wording | Show relevant suggestions as visitors type |
And don’t forget about mobile users. Hiding the search icon inside a menu forces them to open the menu before they can start searching. So keep the search bar visible and easily accessible, even on smaller screens.
Improving Website Search Results Relevance
Getting visitors to use your search bar is only the first step. Once they enter a query, your website needs to understand what they’re looking for and put the most relevant results near the top. Matching the exact words helps, but the results should reflect what visitors actually want to find.
Start with your most popular search queries. Review your website’s search logs to see whether they return the products or pages visitors expect. And prioritise those searches before tackling less common queries.
The following changes can make your search results more useful and easier to navigate:
- Prioritise the Most Relevant Matches: Rank results based on how closely they match the search query, considering product names, categories and descriptions. Don’t automatically put an exact keyword match above a more useful result.
- Show the Result Count: A simple count of matching results helps visitors understand how many options they have and whether they need to narrow their search.
- Keep Filters Within Reach: Place relevant filters, such as price, size and category, near the top of the results page. Visitors can then narrow their options without starting another search.
- Highlight Matching Words: When search terms appear in bold in result titles or descriptions, visitors can scan the page and spot relevant information more easily.
- Include Product Images and Prices: For online stores, product thumbnails and prices give visitors a quick way to compare options without opening every product page.
Introduce these changes gradually and monitor how visitors interact with the results. Track search clicks, conversions and searches that end without a useful interaction. These measurements will help you identify which improvements make finding the right products or information easier.
Usability Testing: Three Ways to Prove Your Search Fix Worked
A search results page can look better on paper without making the experience any easier for visitors. You need to see how people use it, whether they find relevant results and what happens after they click. These three testing methods can help you find out:
- Task-Based Usability Tests: Ask a few customers to complete specific tasks using your site’s search, such as finding a waterproof jacket under $150. Watch how they search, where they hesitate and whether they need to change their queries. Record each session, so your team can review any problems.
- Search Analytics Review: Your search reports can reveal which queries return no results, receive very few clicks or lead to exits. Google Analytics 4 can track internal search terms when your website passes them through a recognised URL parameter or a custom event. Compare these metrics before and after your changes to see whether visitor behaviour has improved.
- A/B Testing on Results: Put your original and updated results pages to the test by showing each version to a different group of visitors. Compare click-through rates, add-to-cart actions and conversions to see which version performs better. Run this experiment across full weeks to account for differences in weekday and weekend behaviour.
Don’t rely on analytics alone. They can show where visitors struggle, but watching people use your search function helps explain why. Combine both approaches and repeat your tests after major search updates to catch new usability problems.
Give Customers a Reason to Stay Instead of Searching Google
Now you know what makes site search frustrating and how to improve the experience. Start by reviewing your own search function, identify the major problems and put the recommended changes into action.
Need professional help improving your website usability? The JDDST team can help you identify search issues and build a better experience for your visitors.
