Local / internal search support!

Local searches (searches performed with your site's own search engine) has been one of the biggest feature requests we've had over the years, so we're happy to finally support it!

First, you need to tell us what the search parameter is that your site uses. Common ones would be "q" or "search". Examples:

http://yoursite.com/search?q=lollipops
http://yoursite.com/search?search=care+bear+stare

You can set this in your site preferences:

You will then start seeing data in the new local searches report:

You can click on any of the searches to filter down to the visitors who performed said searches:

They will also show up in Spy:

As well as the actions log (both globally, and when viewing a session):

The action log can also be filtered down to just show local searches:

And that about covers everything!

28 comments | Apr 16 2013 4pm

Reader Comments

Is there support for multiple local search parameters? I have a CMS that uses one query string, and a blog that uses another. Both use the same tracking code.

Brian Apr 16 2013 4:41pm

I read the instructions that appear after clicking on the "?", but I still don't understand what to put in the "local search parameter" field. Are there four options, "search", "q", "term" and "keyword"? When I search for "apples" at my web site, here is what appears in the URL bar:
http://wildfiretoday.com/?s=apples

Bill Apr 16 2013 4:43pm

Brian: We will be releasing an update containing this feature (multiple local search parameters) in the near future.

Bill: Based upon the URL you entered, your "local search parameter" field should contain the value "s", and nothing more.

Alexander Apr 16 2013 5:24pm

How about me?
When I search, the link is:
"http://www.mysite.com/search?q=keyword"

Should I insert only "q" or "/search?q"?

Rute Apr 16 2013 6:47pm

I'm trying to get this to work, but the search parameter doesn't seem to be in the URL when using google custom search?

I used the search term 'test' and got the following url:
http://landmaninsider.com/search-results/?cx=partner-pub-2467653723238252%3Ail222-rvl0h&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=test&sa=Search+This+Blog&siteurl=landmaninsider.com%2F&ref=landmaninsider.com%2Fwp-admin%2Findex.php&ss=2531j3870819j6

Any ideas?

Randy Apr 16 2013 6:49pm

Oh wait! I see it!! :)

Randy Apr 16 2013 6:57pm

Rute: For your URL, you'd enter "q" into the 'local search parameter' box.

Alexander Apr 16 2013 10:40pm

I added a few examples in the blog post, at the top.

Sean (Clicky) Apr 16 2013 11:57pm

Thanks for the feature :)

It would also be great to group searches into categories by part of url? On my site,
/search/question?text=potty training -> A search in questions area
/search/product?text=potty training -> A search for a product

Local Search parameter(s):
url:*/search/*, querystring:text
url:*/product/*, querystring:text

Gokhan Apr 17 2013 1:37am

Any way to get this to work when there is no explicit parameter in the URL? My search is configured as below (for a sample search for "search query"):

/search/search%20query

Andy Langton Apr 17 2013 1:47am

My search looks like this:

http://www.rdo.co.uk/search/test

can i just use /search/?

Matt Apr 17 2013 4:21am

O/ thank you so much

Stone Apr 17 2013 4:30am

Nice feature, but what about searches submitted by post?? This is going to constitute most of the searches on most sites.

Aaron Apr 17 2013 5:14am

lovely jubbly

blobman Apr 17 2013 5:14am

As mentioned earlier, I'm using google CSE. Local searches show up in Spy, but they don't show on the Searches -> Local Searches menu. Is there any known issues with that section?

Randy Apr 17 2013 5:39am

Really like this. Thank you!

Khaleel Apr 17 2013 7:27am

What about if I am using Google CSE to provide search functionality can you track that too?

badrobot Apr 17 2013 7:31am

It's a great feature but it doesn't work on my wordpress blog.
The query is "?s=test" so i've added "s" to my "Local Search parameter".
No searches saved.

What do i've to try?
Thx

Francesco Apr 17 2013 7:51am

I'm at least the 3rd person who is trying this who is using wordpress and has ?s= in their searches, so according to the post we should be using "s" (without quotes) in the parameter field. But its not working for us 3 people. So I hope clicky developers are reading these comments and can help us out. I really hope this works for wordpress.org types like us.

Darin Apr 17 2013 8:14am

It will work for wordpress. Once you enter in the parameter, caches have to clear before we will start processing it. Give it at least a few hours.

Sean (Clicky) Apr 17 2013 11:58am

Hi Sean,

thank you for the reply.
I tried to disable all the caching plugins and i cleared the local cache of my computer.
Then i made some tests, several times today (with different browsers and platforms).
Always the same result.

I will wait 24 hours and i'll let you know!
Can't wait to use this feature....

Francesco Apr 17 2013 12:19pm

Sorry, I meant caches on our end.

If you are testing yourself, that won't work since we ignore your own traffic by default. You need to enter incognito or private browsing mode so cookies are turned off.

Sean (Clicky) Apr 17 2013 1:35pm

Thanks for the response. I'll wait and check it tomorrow!

Darin Apr 17 2013 1:49pm

Nice feature, but.... we dont use search parameters. ( our sites have ajax searches, which fills results in a div while typing ) and a 'drop down' search-selection, where i want to know the last step ( 3rd dropdown )
Will there be a api call to add search info to the current visitor/user/tracker ?

The last dropdown, the user clicks is a normal href, so adding a click event there isn't the problem, even search data ( search string ) can be added there.

So a api call ( so we can add the search data to the user/session in the code-behind ) or a javascript function will be a nice addon for this.

Sincerely,
Gerwin ( .Net C# developer )

Gerwin Apr 17 2013 2:32pm

Here is my search string as it appears in browser;

index.php?src=search&search_id=search&search_this=chris

Here is the string as it appears in clicky;

index.php?search_id=search&search_this=jody

I tried src but the only thing that showed in local searches was the word search. I tried search_this but still nothing.

Suggestions?

Chris Theisen Apr 18 2013 8:05am

> Any way to get this to work when there is no explicit parameter in the URL? My search is configured as below (for a sample search for "search query"):
> /search/search%20query

Same situation for me (Sphinx Search with friendly permalinks)
I tried 'search' as parameter, but it's not logging anything under Local Searches since this was announced.

Jean-Paull Apr 18 2013 12:11pm

I'll try again...

"My search looks like this:

http://www.rdo.co.uk/search/test

can i just use /search/?"

Matt Apr 22 2013 3:19am

Not yet. But we will support that.

Sean (Clicky) Apr 22 2013 10:48am

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Local / internal search support!

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