Onsite Search Engine

[EcomLkwd]

Hi,

We have a search engine on our website. Whenever a user searches on our site it goes to subdomain - search.mysite.com. This domain is not hosted by us, is this negatively affecting our SEO?

Does google interpret this as a bounce since a user is technically leaving our site to search for something?

Are there any other ramifications this would have on our site?

Thanks!

[BrightHealth]

Yep, it is likely counted unless Google Analytics is treating the subdomain as part of your main site. If session information isn't being passed, Google would not know.

[EcomLkwd]

I'm not so sure what you mean, are you saying that it is counted as a bounce to the site if google analytics doesn't treat this this subdomain as part of the site?

[BrightHealth]

I believe if a user lands on a page on mysite.com and doesn't visit any other page on this domain, and then clicks a link to search.mysite.com, then this would count as a bounce unless you set search.mysite.com to be in the same Analytics profile.

[EcomLkwd]

To add the domain name would help for analytics. Does it show google that users aren't leaving the site?

[Carson-Ward]

Firstly, I'm unclear as to where the subdomain lives - you say it's hosted by someone else, but then use "mysite.com" as the example. If I understand you, it's hosted by someone else, but lives on your domain - is that right?

If you don't have the same Google analytics code on the search pages, it will look like a user disappears, leaving the site, then potentially coming back. You can check this by viewing the source and looking for your GA code on any search page. This is purely a data and analytics issue, not a search optimization issue.

As far as SEO is concerned, I wouldn't worry too much about it unless the functionality of your site depends heavily on searching. You should probably block any search pages in robots.txt anyway, as for most sites they add no value. If your site works exclusively with search, you might need to find a new solution.