This is sort of a back door to keyword research and website
analytics... but I have one of those google search boxes on a couple of
my sites. Lots of people use it. For a long time I've wondered what my
visitors are searchin' for. If I knew what they were using as keywords
in the on-site search it would tell me what content I need to develop -
or what needs tweaked. If I can give visitors what they are searching
for then it should give me payback in sales or links or advertising
units - and increase my pageviews and average time on site (who knows
if Google isn't sniffing that from the toolbar data and using it for
our rankings :) I found out that querries from my own search box include the following character string in the log entry: google.com/custom?domains=egol.com
Now when I run my log analysis I can filter by that character string and learn what my site visitors are searching for. The results were very enlighening and have led to development of a few really good pages that are now getting nice traffic from several directions.
Thinking about this a bit more... it is very important to grab the keyword. Thanks to LoveTheCoast and Sorvoja for bringing this up. Upon looking at my logs more closely and comparing with search volume, what shows in my logs are not quite all of the querries. The method in my article would miss the paid clicks and those who didn't click. These are not large numbers for my sites but still perhaps some of the most important querries are missing.
I went to terms of service at google too see if a script to grab the KW would a violation. Language there could go either way IMO.
Item #5 at https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms...
At one location is says that you are not allowed to "provide anything other than a direct link from an Ad to an Advertiser Page or from the page containing the Search Box to the Search Results Page"
But at another location it says "while Search Results may be indirectly accessed from Your Site(s), they may only be displayed on the appropriate Google-hosted Web page".
All searches done on the site is very valuable. If you combine this with the behaviour of the user then it is even more valuable. Traffic isn't the main issue in web stores, but to make it easy for the visitor to find what they need and keep them from abandoning the chart. With enough information you could tailor the dynamic content to match the needs of the end user perfectly. It is best to grab the keyword phrase before you send it to Google (you would need a script that does this).
EGOL, you don't have to use the adsense search box you could just link to the normal Google search. The search data collection could be more valuable than the income from the adsense search.
Sorvoja, I agree. For my site search data is more valuable than the adsense money. I am thinking about this more. Thank you.
Thats the main reason i was twittereing on about building my own search engine on seochat a while back. I wanted to see what people really search for and not what overture and wordtracker tell me.
It's a very creative idea to keyword research for a normal/high traffic site. Well done, EGOL!
It's a brilliant backdoor into what real "related searches" look like. Absolutely brilliant idea, and very unique. I'm surprised I've never seen this mentioned elsewhere...
I like your ideas, too, Lovethecoast - programtically speaking, it's a great way to make sure the data grabbed is yours.
Wow, that is a great idea that I haven't thought of.
Thanks EGOL.
Or change the search boxes to 'AdSense for search' and then view the top queries on your AdSense stats page.
Hi EGOL, What logs are you referring to? Submitting a form POST from yoursite.com to google.com wouldn't show up in an apache httpd log, as far as I know.
I have my search box set to open the results into a new window - and that window is on google.com.
Another thing you can do is instead of the form posting to Google, post the results to a page of your own. Grab the search terms and put them in your own database, then redirect them to Google's search results.
Writing a SQL statement or two is a heck of a lot easier than combing through log files, and setting up something like this shouldn't take you longer than 15-20 minutes.
I too have had a Google search on my website, but had never thought to check via the logfiles what is going on. Thanks indeed for highlighting this.