Google Blogoscoped

Forum

How to Enable Google Analytics Site Search  (View post)

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

Saturday, November 3, 2007
16 years ago6,913 views

So, does this do it without you having to put in code?

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

If your site already has the Urchin tracker (in other words, if you are already using Google Analytics) you don't need to insert any additional code. Well, at least that's how I think it's supposed to work... I'm still waiting for the first results to come in.

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Well, that's a great user-friendly way to do it if i works...nice idea

Ludwik Trammer [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

What about "Yes, strip query parameters out of URL"/"No, do not strip query parameters out of URL"? What's the difference?

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Ludwik, this one puzzled me too, it's not well-explained in the interface and the help file doesn't seem to elaborate on this. I suppose this *could* mean that when you activate the stripping of parameters, then Google will treat e.g.
   example.com/q=test&foo=1&safe=on
the same as
   example.com/?q=test&foo=2&safe=off
bundling the two into one item in the analysis. I'll drop Google Press support an email to see if they can explain this to us.

Otis Gospodnetic [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

That's useful!
But what about sites that rewrite their URLs, so their search URLs look like http://www.simpy.com/links/search/google ?

Any way to get GA to pick up search info from such URLs?

Razvan Antonescu [PersonRank 2]

16 years ago #

I agree with Othis :) And another thing. So far I have used Google Adsense reports to track my CSEs, their default statistics being a disaster. Now it seems that they have changed their queries for the labels and I cannot track if the users are using refinements anymore :(

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I asked Google to clarify on the meaning of the "strip query parameters" box and here's their reply (edited to prevent URL auto-linking):

<<For query parameters designated for Site Search, the corresponding key-value pairs are removed from the page URLs so that they do not hamper the analysis for those URLs. This is necessary for some users who want to aggregate traffic to particular pages without having multiple entries created by different query or category values.

e.g., consider the following pages being viewed:

1 pageview: http: //mysite.com/?q=ipod&cat=electronics&scid=2342
1 pageview: http: //mysite.com/?q=zune&cat=electronics&scid=2342
1 pageview: http: //mysite.com/?q=mp3&cat=music&scid=1111

If the checkbox for "Yes, strip query parameters out of URL" is selected, these pages will become:

2 pageviews: http: //mysite.com/?scid=2342
1 pageview: http: //mysite.com/?scid=1111>>

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

PS: First Site Search results are in for some sites I added, this is fun to analyze...

Jesse DaCosta [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I just starting playing around with it as well and one question I have is does this work for websites that don't have a query parameter in the URL that signals the search term? For example, you are on a site and the search page (they don't have a search box, they have a link to the search page which then has search box) is example.com/search/, you then enter in a term into the search box like desks for example and the resulting search results page is example.com/search/index.php. As you can see, no query paramter, does this mean the site search won't work for this site? I have another site where if you search on the home page, you get a nice URL where you can see the query parameter: www.example.com/catalog/shop/listpro...1&pr=tables, but if you search from anywhere else on the site you will get a URL that looks like this: www.example.com/catalog/shop/listproducts.asp.

I am also seeing in the Destination Pages report (exit) as one of my destination pages. Does this mean people are exiting from another page; but then why it would be listed here separate as another page? I am also seeing (entrance) in my Start Pages report which leads me to a similar question to the one I had for (exit), is this entrances to the site? I don't get that one because even if a page was an entrance wouldn't their be a URL for that page??

Lastly I am seeing my no results returned page as my top Destination Page and my top Start Page which sort of makes a little sense but 620 uniques searches led to this page and it has %0 search exits which doesn't seem to fly. This doesn't seem to makes sense to me.

Anyone else having issues or have answers to these questions? It is a new and exciting feature and I'm sure testing will help answer some of these but Google's help section isn't very "helpful."

Forum home

Advertisement

 
Blog  |  Forum     more >> Archive | Feed | Google's blogs | About
Advertisement

 

This site unofficially covers Google™ and more with some rights reserved. Join our forum!