Why are “empty” searches showing in my analytics dashboard?

Answer:

In order to return results, first a request must be made to your Search.io collection. Usually this request is made with a query string parameter, e.g www.acme.com/search?q=test, which would record “test” as a query in your analytics dashboard. However, the query string parameter may also be empty, for example when a user accesses your search results by visiting www.acme.com/search (either by directly typing it into their browser, clicking through from a search engine etc). A request is still sent to Search.io to return results, but with an empty query parameter - in which case we record the search string as “empty”.

If your category pages are also powered by Search.io, user visits to these pages will also be recorded as “empty” queries.