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CASE STUDY
Royal Holloway Transforms Site Search to Improve Course Discovery
A modern, on-brand search experience that improves course discovery, unlocks actionable insight and gives marketing teams direct control
“Getting our new site search in and functioning was remarkably smooth. That can’t be overstated.”
James Dodd | Head of Digital, Royal Holloway
When the Website Is the Source of Truth, Search Can’t Feel Like an Afterthought
Royal Holloway, University of London is a leading research-intensive University of Social Purpose. With a strong academic reputation and multi-channel recruitment strategy, the University’s website plays a critical role in how prospective students discover and evaluate its offerings.
Each year, student survey feedback consistently ranks Royal Holloway’s website as one of the top sources of official information, especially during early and mid-research stages of the journey.
But the institution’s onsite search experience no longer met that standard. The University had been using a basic, Google plugin that was functional, but limited. Royal Holloway couldn’t meaningfully influence relevance or design, creating friction at the exact moment prospective students were trying to evaluate courses and programs. The search experience also felt visually disconnected from the rest of the site, creating a jarring moment inside what should have been a cohesive user journey.
At the same time, it had become difficult to pull useful search analytics. Insight was limited and hard to access, which made it tough to understand what visitors were trying to find, where the onsite search experience was falling short and what should be improved next.
A broader UX review with a UK agency helped sharpen the priority. Search emerged as a clear underperformer. That became the catalyst to upgrade it as a core part of the digital experience.
“Before SearchStax, we had no control over the search experience; we didn’t have the ability to tweak anything for our students to better find what they need.”
– James Dodd, Head of Digital
A Procurement Process That Rewarded Flexibility, Not Promises
Royal Holloway followed a formal procurement process to upgrade their onsite search and evaluated multiple vendors. What stood out about SearchStax Site Search was how directly it aligned with the institution’s priorities.
First, the team wanted an experience that could be customized to look and feel like Royal Holloway’s website. They weren’t looking for something that felt like a generic plugin shared across countless sites. They wanted search to complement the existing UX and fit naturally into the design system.
Second, they wanted access to data they could actually use to fuel downstream impact. Search insights needed to be available and actionable, so the team could make better decisions both reactively and proactively.
Third, they wanted to gain marketing agility and be able to tune and improve search without creating delays. For Dodd and his team, it mattered that marketing and digital experience owners could contribute directly, instead of logging IT tickets and losing momentum while waiting for development cycles.
Just as important, the implementation matched the institution’s expectations. SearchStax delivered on the promise of customizability and ease of integration in practice, not just in the procurement process.
Going Live With In-house Resource and a Clear MVP Mindset
Royal Holloway implemented SearchStax themselves. While many UK higher education institutions rely on outsourced technical partners for this kind of work, Royal Holloway’s internal IT team was equipped to handle a light front-end integration.
The rollout was intentionally scoped as an MVP. The initial focus was the main University website, though the institution has multiple sites and potential future data sources. The goal was to get a modern search experience in place on the primary domain first, then expand from a stronger foundation.
That practical approach also surfaced an early indexing lesson. The team found that their content mix included a large volume of documents. They refined what should be indexed and surfaced, recognizing that not every document was equally valuable to make searchable for students and other audiences, especially given the realities of digital asset management.
Starting with a single, high-impact site allowed the team to reduce risk, learn quickly from real user behavior and build internal confidence before expanding search to additional domains and audiences.
Search Analytics That Turned Curiosity Into a Repeatable Improvement Loop
One of the biggest shifts after implementation was visibility. With SearchStax, Royal Holloway gained access to search analytics that simply had not been available with their previous Google instance, including a clear view of engagement and click behavior.
Royal Holloway uses this data as an ongoing feedback loop, supported by regular working sessions with SearchStax. Dodd highlighted how SearchStax account support helped their hands-on team members interpret what the data might mean and decide what to do next.
While Royal Holloway is still building capacity to act on every insight as quickly as they would like, the key change is that the information is now available and provides actionable avenues forward. That makes search improvement a continuous process rather than a one-time project.
“The data availability and having insight against our site search that’s actionable has been one of the biggest upgrades for our digital experience.”
– James Dodd
Helping Prospective Students Find the Right Course, Even When Their Query is Imperfect
Course discovery is one of the most important outcomes on Royal Holloway’s website. Prospective students often arrive knowing the subject area they want, but they don’t always search using the exact course name or phrasing used on the site. In fact, they frequently type in full questions or colloquial phrases that relate to the courses and programs they want to find.
Royal Holloway has started using search data to better understand these patterns, especially adjacent or near-match course queries. When someone searches for a variant of a course term, the goal is to connect them to the most relevant option, or a sensible alternative, without creating a confusing experience.
By tuning search to recognize intent rather than exact phrasing, Royal Holloway reduced friction in one of its highest-value journeys; this helps students move forward rather than jumping back to a search engine, a common response to irrelevant responses.
Search as a Strategic Lever during Peak Moments
Clearing periods and results days create predictable spikes in intent-heavy traffic. Royal Holloway recognized that search promotions could play a central role in guiding students during these high-pressure moments, when clarity and speed matter most.
Thoughtful Governance Over “More Logins”
Role-based access to their Site Search instance has been valuable as Royal Holloway is deliberate about administration and user management. Access currently stays primarily with the marketing and communications team and specific IT members who were involved in implementation.
Search insights are still shared more broadly through exports and reporting, alongside other data sources. This governance-first approach protects focus while still enabling stakeholders across the institution to benefit from the insights.
What’s Next: AI-Assisted Experiences, More Data Sources and Smarter Refinement
Royal Holloway is exploring what a more assistive search experience could look like over time. Leadership within the digital marketing team collaborates with the institution’s AI working group, which is focused on safe, practical adoption of AI. The team is interested in experiences that feel more anticipatory and answer-oriented, like SearchStax Smart Answers, while still grounded in official university content.
Expansion is also on the roadmap. Royal Holloway can leverage SearchStax’s multi-site search management capabilities, and roll it out to additional sites and data sources, including smaller microsites.
The team also plans on adding more facets and filters to their search to make program-focused refinement easier along with additional structure groupings to improve content discovery.
Royal Holloway’s search transformation started with a simple realization: when the website is the top source of official information, search has to reinforce trust, not undermine it.
By moving from a basic plugin to a customizable, insight-driven search platform, the university created a foundation that supports course discovery today and a more assistive, data-informed experience tomorrow.
Product
Site Search
Platform
Umbraco
Location
EMEA
Industry
Higher Education
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