Using Google Analytics to track searches in Drupal

Updated: Added some PHP code to complete the example

Google Analytics needs you to specify part of a query string in order for you to get specialized "Site Search" reports. However in Drupal you might have nice Clean URLs like this:

http://example.com/search/bananas

instead of what GA wants, something like

http://example.com/search?query=bananas

You can still get Site Search reports for searches using Clean URLs, using the Google Analytics API.

You just need to:

• Use the "new" GA handling code.
  
• Add code like this at the end of your page; I recommend putting it inside a Block (be sure to mark the Input Format to be "PHP code"):
  

  
  <?php
  if (arg(0) == 'apachesolr_search' || arg(0) == 'search') {
  $keys = search_get_keys();
  ?>
  <script type="text/javascript">
  pageTracker._trackPageview('/site_search?query=<?php echo $keys; ?>');
  </script>
  <?php
  }
  ?>
  
  

You then tell your GA report's settings to activate Site Search reporting and to look for "query" as the search argument.

After a day of logging, your GA reports will include the report. See a site searching report sample.