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Enable Site Search Tracking for a Website

FirstHive CDP can track what users search for on your website by detecting search keywords in the URL. This is the default and simplest method for Site Search tracking.

When enabled in FirstHive CDP, it automatically works if your search results page includes a query parameter like:

https://example.com/search?q=analytics

FirstHive CDP reads the keyword analytics from the q parameter and logs it as a Site Search action.

By default, every new FirstHive CDP instance includes a built-in list of global query parameter names it automatically recognizes when Site Search is enabled without custom parameters. These include:

q, query, s, search, searchword, k, keyword, keywords

Step 1: Inspect the Website’s Search URL

Before configuring Site Search in FirstHive CDP, identify which query parameter your site uses to pass the keyword. Different websites may use different names like q, search, or term.

  1. Go to your website and perform a search.
  2. Check the URL of the results page. It should show something like:
  3. ?q=analytics
  4. ?search=analytics
  5. ?term=analytics
  6. Identify the parameter name that holds the search keyword (e.g., q, search, or term).

Step 2: Enable Site Search with Search Parameters

  1. Log in to FirstHive CDP as a superuser (or with admin access to edit website settings).
  2. Navigate to Settings Cog Icon > Measurables > Manage.
  3. Click the pencil icon to edit your website settings.
  4. Scroll to the Site Search section and set your preference:
  5. Enable Site Search tracking
  6. Do not track Site Search (to disable tracking only for site searches).
  7. To use the global query parameters, tick the checkbox Use default Site Search parameters.
  8. If you have search query parameters specific to a website (and not all websites), leave the checkbox unticked.
  9. In the Query parameter field, enter the name(s) of the keyword parameters, separated by commas (e.g., term, searchkey).
  10. Enter Category parameter(s) if your site includes search categories.
  11. Save your changes.

Note: Custom query parameters defined at the website level will override the global defaults for that specific website.