[Sigia-l] search logs - relevance of penultimate referrers?

[Eric Scheid]

On 21/3/06 3:17 AM, "Jonathan Baker-bates"
<Jonathan.Baker-bates at framfab.com> wrote:

> Ah - this is clearer now. When you said in your last post "The context
> is when examining search logs" I thought you were talking about the web
> server's referer logs in which name/value pairs are sometimes returned
> for searches. The logs generated by the site search mechanism *itself*
> are a completely different kettle of fish. Sorry for the confusion.

Ah, I see the reason for confusion too. Dammit, if only we were allowed to
name things properly on this list without some troll grumping out from under
his bridge^Wsoapbox ;-)

> So if this "search log tool" you are rolling out can analyse penultimate
> referrers along with other stuff that standard NCSA logs can't get then,
> yes, it would be useful.
> 
> What search software would it be compatible with, out of interest?

Don't know. It's still a low cost proof of concept I'm idly tooling away on
for my clients. One of them has it installed for site search, another has it
in a product/catalogue search, and a third has it installed for their
members directory. So, not generic site search software, as such.

What are examples of search software out there? If a particular search
software already logs their searches, and supports custom fields, then no
software from my end is required. Just stick a hidden field in the search
form and populate it via javascript(document.referrer).

e.