Analyse site search reports

Under Visitors > Overview, the total number of Site Searches is reported alongside the total number of Pageviews, Downloads, Outlinks, Events, etc.

Under Behavior > Site Search, you will find all the detailed reports, such as the Top Internal Searches:

You will also find the “Pages Following a Site Search” report, which displays the pages which are most searched for and clicked on in your search engine:

View the Detailed Searches for each Visitor

The Visitor Log & Real Time Widget will show the searches done by each visitor. In the example below, the visitor went to the Matomo (Piwik).org homepage, searched for “javascript”, then “no script”, visited four pages, searched for “cookie”, visited one page, and finally searched for “server side”. Matomo lets you see in detail how visitors are using your websites and when during their visit they have executed a search:

Number of searches and keywords over time

The Visitors > Overview report will also show the number of searches and unique keywords:

Understand How Site Search is Used to Find other Pages on your Site

The useful Transitions report will also show when Internal Search Keywords were used to reach the page being visualized. For example, in the screenshot below, you can see that there were five Internal Searches (on the left) that lead to the “/changelog” page (in the middle box). The searches were “changelog”, “add site”, “grouping” and “change servers”.

It is useful to know which keywords visitors search for to find a particular page. If, for example, you notice many people search for a particular page, perhaps that page is more important than you realize and could be showcased more clearly.

Tracking how people search your website is an easy way to find out exactly what your visitors want from you and your website.

Happy Site Search Analytics with Matomo!