At a high level, category page and search page analytics are fundamentally the same in terms of how they track user interactions and metrics. The key difference lies in how the data is represented in the dashboard.
Category Pages vs. Search Pages
Search pages show metrics based on user-entered search terms.
Category pages, on the other hand, typically don’t use search terms. Instead, they load results using filters, such as
category:"shoes"with an empty query.
How this affects analytics
Since there’s no actual query string on a category page, showing "empty search" metrics wouldn’t provide meaningful insight. So, instead of displaying the count of empty searches, the dashboard highlights the category filter used, effectively showing which category page was viewed.
So that your Analytics knows which filter you are using for your categories, you will need to declare a category page identifier.
This allows you to track performance (clicks, conversions, etc.) by category, rather than by search keyword.