Pankaj Borana

Google Analytics Hacks-I (Adding More Search Engines)

Out of the box, Google Analytics is a powerful tool to add to your armory of search marketing, customer relationship, and other business management tools. With only a single page tag required to collect data, it is straightforward to set up; and with the addition of some filters, you can really gain an insight into your website performance.

You may get all the answers on the Website traffic patterns but your mind may develop a new set of questions which are unanswered by Google Analytics-Yes, You can do it with little lateral thinking and google analytics is very flexibe in its approach before you go ahead i must tell you that you must be familiar with JavaScript-

Customizing the List of Recognized Search Engines

Google Analytics currently identifies organic referrals from the following search
engines in your reports:

• AOL
• About
• Alice
• Alltheweb
• AltaVista
• Ask
• Baidu
• CNN
• Clubinternet
• Gigablast
• Google
• Google.interia
• Live
• LookSmart
• Lycos
• MSN
• Mama
• Mamma
• Najdi
• Netscape
• Netsprint
• Onet
• Pchome
• Search
• Seznam
• Szukacz
• Virgilio
• Voila
• Wp
• Yahoo!
• Yam
• Yandex
 

Although Google Analytics adds new recognized search engines to this list regularly, there are of course a great many more search engines in the world—language and region-specific as well as niche search engines such as price comparison and vertical portals. It is therefore possible to modify and append to the list of recognized search engines.

For example, suppose you wanted the BBC search engine to be listed as such in your reports, along with the search terms used by those visitors. First, conduct a search on the BBC website and view the resultant URL. For example, searching for motorcycle produces the following search result URL: http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi- in/search/results.pl?q=motorcycle

 

To capture this URL and recognize it as a search engine, add the following code to your page GATC:

 

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.”

: “http://www.”);

document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));

</script>

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-12345-1”);

pageTracker._addOrganic(“bbc.co.uk”, “q”);

pageTracker._initData();

pageTracker._trackPageview();

</script>

The line pageTracker._addOrganic(“bbc.co.uk”, “q”) simply appends this search engine to the default list of search engines contained in the GATC. As you can see, the format is:

 

pageTracker._addOrganic(“search_engine_domain”, “query_parameter_name”);

 

You can continue to add other search engines as needed by creating additional addOrganic lines. For example, to add the price comparison engine IndiaTimes as a regular search engine, add the following:

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.”

: “http://www.”);

document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “googleanalytics.

com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));

</script>

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-12345-1”);

pageTracker._addOrganic(“bbc.co.uk”, “q”);

pageTracker._addOrganic(“Indiatimes”, “siteSearchQuery”);

pageTracker._initData();

pageTracker._trackPageview();

</script>

Using this method, IndiaTimes would be listed in the Search Engine report along with other search engines. That is useful in itself, but what provides more insight is that the  corresponding IndiaTimes search terms used by visitors would be listed in the Keywords report. Without this little hack, IndiaTimes would simply be listed as a standard referrer with no search terms logged.