Optimising the ONS site search function with Google Analytics and Natural Language Processing

In this study, we investigated challenges related to the site search function of the ONS website and made recommendations on possible improvements.

Although there is a wealth of literature on search engine optimisation (SEO), most solutions are designed for commercial websites that do not share similar goals and constraints as public sector websites.

In our report, we discuss why off-the-shelf solutions are not always suitable and – where there is a gap – we explored dedicated approaches. We report on ideas that we found promising, as well as experiments that have not led to successful outcomes.

Keywords: Search Engine Optimisation, Natural Language Processing, Unsupervised Machine Learning, Google Analytics