To prevent malicious users or repetitive actions from skewing results, Query Categorization (QCat) undergoes a deduplication process. We consider a maximum of 1 click and 1 conversion per objectID, per query, per userToken, per day.
For a query to be considered unique, one of the required conditions is that it must have been searched at least 10 times in the last 90 days by distinct users.
During event aggregation, that is, when events are attributed to the search they originated from, Analytics uses the userToken sent with the search query. Therefore, it's important that the userToken sent with search requests matches the one sent with their corresponding events. If there’s a mismatch, the search userToken takes precedence.
If you are not sending userTokens at query time, Algolia defaults to using the user's IP address to identify them. In backend implementations where all queries originate from the same server, every request appears to come from a single user.
In these cases, or if you are sending a single userToken value for a large group of users, there are effectively no distinct users, which will prevent any queries from qualifying as “unique”.
For a full list of common userToken issues, troubleshooting topics and best practices, see our summary article here.