---
# System prepended metadata

title: Improving Search Results for docs.ansible.com
tags: [Documentation]

---

# Improving Search Results for docs.ansible.com
###### tags: `Documentation`

## Problem
We still get search results from very old documentation sets. We've already put canonical URLs to latest on all the docs except 2.3.

For example, a search on ansible inventory returns the following as of June 29,2022:
![](https://i.imgur.com/Uho4FZ1.png)

2.3 is the second search result.

Using Googe analytics, we get:

![](https://i.imgur.com/CbPLDqD.png)
Where the average position is just under 7th for search results for all 2.3 docs in the past week.

For Adobe analytics for the past week we have:
![](https://i.imgur.com/8lMWVQg.png)

So 2,958 page views for all 2.3 docs in one week.

## Adding canonical URL to 2.3
As of June 29,2022, we have published canonical URL to Ansible 2.3 so we will track to see if there is improvement over time.

### July 25th Update
After nearly a month, the same search shows the 2.3 docs have moved down to the third search result instead of the second. Minor improvement.

Google analytics shows:
![](https://i.imgur.com/wiJuQLe.png)

Which shows roughly a 30% drop in activity for 2.3 docs. 

Finally, Adobe analytics shows:
![](https://i.imgur.com/7gdLoLH.png)

Which is a drop from 1.9% of docs hits down to 1.3% (page views 2.3 / overall page views).

## Next Steps

We have two options:
1. archive the older EOL docs to a separate site, something like docs.ansible.com/archive/ansible/2.3 etc. Then we can put redirects from docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.3 to docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest.  
2. Use redirects based on referrer. In this approach, if the referrer is empty (aka a bookmark) or if the referrer is docs.ansible.com, proceed to the older docs (aka 2.3). Otherwise redirect to latest.

In either case, the docs will still be available from the docsite and we can add a link to them from the main docs.ansible.com page for users to find etc.

## Referrer redirects

Using option two above. See https://hackmd.io/0B7n-FUySF6MB3CQeaqUkA for details.
