Joomla Search and Google Analytics

Google Analytics has a really useful feature called Site Search and it's very easy to integrate JXtended Finder to take advantage of this.  It works whether your Joomla site has SEF turned on or off.

The first step is to log into your Google Analytics control panel.  You should be on the page entitled "Overview: all accounts".

Click on the domain that you want to tracking searching on (don't click the edit link on this page - it takes you to the wrong spot).

You should be on a page entitled "Overview » jxtended.com" (adjust for your domain obviously).  Click on the "Edit" link in the last column.

You should be on a page entitled "Profile Settings: jxtended.com".  Now see the box with the heading of "Main Website Profile Information"?  Click on "Edit" to the right of that heading.

You should now be on a page entitled "Edit Profile Information".  Under the heading of "Site Search", click the option to "Do Track Site Search".  The page will open up some new options.  Here is what you need to enter:

• In the "Query Parameter" field, type "q" (without the quotes).
  
• Select "Yes, strip query parameters out of URL".
• Under "Do you use categories for site search?" select "Yes".
  
• In the "Category Parameter" field, type "f[]" (without the quotes).
  
• Select "Yes, strip category parameters out of URL".

The options should look like the following screenshot.

Tomorrow, you should be able to see results starting to come through (assuming that visitors are using your site search).

Note that this method does not work with the native Joomla search because the search string is embedded in the URL link - another reason to use Finder on every Joomla Web site.

To see the report of the results go to the dashboard for the analytics of your domain.  Now click on "Content" and then "Site Seach".  The resulting landing page might look something like the following screenshot:

You can see where we turned site search on and that results are steadily coming in.  Next time we'll look at analysing the search results and how Finder can tune the results so that the most relevant content is at or near the top of the search results (just like you do for SEO only you are now in control of the search algorithm).

Finder is an essential addition to every Joomla Web site to provide advanced search capabilities.  For more information, see the features or documentation pages, check out the demo or Subscribe to Finder.