New GA.js script allows to track EE searches
Google updated their Analytics code from their former Urchin script (urchin.js) to their own Google Analytics (gs.js) that now allows to track:
- Site Search (e.g EE site search)
- Events (e.g file downloads) (still in closed beta Jan.11.2008)
Preparation
1) Set up a Google Analytics(GA) account for your site (follow instructions, make sure to use the new ga.js code!
And add the tracking code on all EE pages (I used a Global Variable in the footer part of my templates).
2) Activate the GAnalytics Site Search function as per official google guide here, or use this easy to follow blog post.
Challenge
GA looks for URL encoded search strings, but EE uses POST to send its search (not URL encoded). So the setup part after “Query Parameter” seems to be somewhat moot…
Solution
1)(Still) Set up the GA “Query Parameter”
You can use any parameter of your choice. I used the standard google “q” as the q=Expression+Engine in:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=Expression+Engine
2) Manually record search result hits
Enter your EE-CP and go to your “Search Results” template (most likely found under search/results). On this page we need to modify the GA code, so if you used a Global Variable you need to replace it with the actual code
Instead of tracking the page using the standard GA script call
pageTracker._trackPageview();
pageTracker._trackPageview('/search?q={exp:search:keywords}');
Now, after someone searched for: “best CMS” using EE search we generated a GA hit for the “virtual” page: “www.yourdomain.com/search?q=best CMS”. And since we told GA to look out for search term after the Query Parameter: “q”, the search is tracked.
The reason we want this is that GA has a separate search tracking module
Further Issues
- Case sensitivity: GA tracks cmS, CMS or Cms as different searches.
- Term separation: GA converts spaces to ; but turns + into a space. E.g ”...q=Best CMS” is recorded as Best CMS whereas ”...q=Best+CMS” is recordes as “Best CMS”
JS solution
Use JS to convert the EE output before generating the virtual URL page hit:
...
terms='{exp:search:keywords}';
searchterms=terms.toLowerCase().replace(/\s/g,'+');
pageTracker._trackPageview('/search?q='+searchterms);
...
Final ga.js Code
Note: it should be document dot write not d.write, but the WIKI won’t allow that.
<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
d.write(unescape("<script src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'></script>"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXXX-X");
pageTracker._initData();
terms='{exp:search:keywords}';
searchterms=terms.toLowerCase().replace(/\s/g,'+');
pageTracker._trackPageview('/search?q='+searchterms);
</script>
Category:Google Category:Search Category:SEO