On the Web: What’s Your Internal Site Search Failure Rate?

Anything but an ‘Error’
Your site search function should report all failed searches and, at the very least, offer the browser something other than an error page with the ubiquitous “no search results found” message, which only frustrates the shopper.

Display the top 10 best-sellers along with suggestions on how to revise the search. Such suggestions might be checking the search term’s spelling, shortening its keyword phrase, etc. The “wording” on this page is most important; shoppers shouldn’t feel it’s their fault your search failed. It also helps to have an additional search box in the body area of this page to further encourage searching again.