Best strategy for analyzing internal search -goal, custom variable, or parse data?

Support & Bugs
1

Hi, we just installed Piwik today on a site that has an internal search (powered by thinking sphinx) and we would like to track search terms so I am asking for the best strategy. I have come up with:

  1. creating a goal perhaps that uses a regular exp to catch query terms and then do something with that…?
  2. creating a custom variable that is triggered via javascript function when the search link is pressed, eg capturing the query terms and setting the customVariable as described in the javascript tracking readme
  3. post processing the data, using some reg exp magic to gather search terms from the mysql table

Please, let me know if I am on or off the right track and what strategies you guys have used and found useful. Thanks,

Jed

2

You should use SiteSearch plugin: Home · BeezyT/piwik-sitesearch Wiki · GitHub

hopefuly we will include this in core soon :slight_smile:

3

It is now possible to track internal searches on your websites, with Piwik Site Search Analytics available as of Piwik 1.9.

You can even track “No Result Keywords” and Search categories if your website supports it. It also lists the pages most clicked on search results.