Where this fits in the Get Started sequence: This is article 2 of 5. After you understand why analytics matters for relevance, use this guide to choose the right analysis scope.
When analytics looks inconsistent, scope is often the cause. Site Search reporting has three layers: App, Language, and Search Profile. This guide explains what each layer shows so you can review the right data before you tune relevance.
Start with the Scope Hierarchy
Think of analytics scope as a hierarchy:
- App: The top-level container for one shared search index, plus its Languages and Search Profiles.
- Language: An optional App-level layer for language-specific search experiences. Each enabled language has its own analytics and its own set of Search Profiles.
- Search Profile: A named configuration for a specific search experience within one language.
Understand What Changes at Each Level
App Level
Use the App as the top-level boundary of your search program. One App contains one index that all Languages and Search Profiles in that App share.
Create separate Apps when you need clearly separate operations, such as different brands, different companies, isolated environments, or fully independent sites.
Language Level
Use Language scope when you serve multiple language audiences and need language-specific measurement.
Note: Multi-language experiences are an optional add-on feature.
- Each language tracks behavior in a separate analytics database.
- Analytics pages summarize one selected language at a time.
- The default language is used when a query doesn't include a language parameter.
Note: The default language experience for new Apps is English (en).
Profile Level
Use Search Profiles when one language needs multiple search experiences, such as site sections, audience segments, or content-type-specific experiences.
- Each profile can have different Data Filters, Ranking, Promotions, Search Fields, and Rules.
- All Profiles provides aggregated analytics across profiles.
- Profile-level analytics dashboards populate only when tracking events include
model(the profile name).
Note: If profile dashboards show zeros, switch to All Profiles to confirm aggregate activity, then ask your technical team to verify that model is included in tracking events. Earlier data isn't retroactively assigned to profiles.
Know Which Settings Are App-Level vs Profile-Level
Scope affects where you should tune relevance settings.
- App-level settings: Auto-Suggest, Multi-Language Experience, Related Searches, Smart Match Assist, Stopwords, Synonyms.
- Profile-level settings: Data Filters, Facets, Hosted Search Experience, Location, Promotions, Ranking, Results Fields, Rules, Search Fields, Sorting.
For a full reference table, see App vs. Profile Settings.
Scope Check Before You Run Analysis
Before you start an analysis workflow, confirm the scope in this order:
- Select the correct App.
- Select the correct Language (if enabled).
- Select either a specific profile or All Profiles, based on your question.
This check helps prevent false conclusions caused by mixed scopes. The next article walks through the full analysis workflow.
Decide What to Create Next
- Create a new App when data, ownership, or operational boundaries should stay separate.
- Add a language when you need a language-specific search experience with separate analytics, tuning, and language-specific dictionaries for features like Synonyms and Stopwords.
- Create an additional profile when you need a different experience from the same index, such as a blog search, docs search, or audience-specific search.
Where to Go Deeper
For conceptual context, read Understanding Apps, Languages, and Search Profiles. For implementation details, see Languages, Search Profiles, and Profile Selector.
Next Steps
Next, read How to Use SearchStax Analytics to Improve Search Relevance (article 3 of 5). It walks through a repeatable process for turning scoped analytics signals into relevance actions.