Google analytics Site search is not working as expected - search

Question

I just started using Google analytics for my website. I found that, enabling site search for a site is very easy as mentioned below,
But my site doesn't have the search term in the query string, instead it is part of the url as mentioned below,
https://mydomian.net/search#q=boxtest18
for some internal reason i cannot modify the code to append search term as querystring to url.
This article explained how to configure site search in GA, if Site Search Term Is Present in the URL: NOT As Query Parameter (Single Term).
When i tried, it doesn't seem working.
Below is my filter configuration.
What i'm doing wrong here?
Can i use the filter for this kind of url?
Is my regular expression correct?
Help me out here.

Answer 1

As Michele mentioned you may append the hash when the query is visible in url hash;
gtag('config', 'GA_TRACKING_ID', {
'page_path': location.pathname + location.hash
});
though if you are using requests (ajax or any restful api) you should manually trigger a page view as a virtual page.
pagePath = location.pathname
gtag('config', 'GA_TRACKING_ID', {page_path: pagePath + '?gender=' + request.gender });
// or if using analytics.js
ga('send', 'pageview', pagePath + '?gender=' + request.gender);
For more info, here is the help section for sending posts
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1012264?hl=en#Post
Pageview Request Object
You may use these to manually trigger a page view for a virtual page. If you are looking to use analytics.js (ga()) please refer to this documentation
gtag('config', 'GA_MEASUREMENT_ID', {
'page_title' : 'homepage',
'page_path': '/home'
});
Parameter name Value type Required Description
page_title string No The page's title.
page_location string No The page's URL.
page_path string No The path portion of location. This value
must start with a slash (/) character.
For more info, here is the official documentation
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/pages
Event Request Object
I am adding this section for completeness
You may use these to trigger a tracking event. If you are looking to use analytics.js (ga()) please refer to this documentation
gtag('event', <action>, {
'event_category': <category>,
'event_label': <label>,
'value': <value>
});
action is the string that will appear as the event action in Google Analytics Event reports.
category is the string that will appear as the event category.
label (optional) is the string that will appear as the event label.
value (optional) is a non-negative integer that will appear as the event value.
For more info, here is the official documentation
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/events

Answer 2

In Google Analytics the URL paths that are passed to GA with your Pageview hits are stripped of these fragments.
You can update the data before sending it to Analytics (track pageviews).
gtag('config', 'GA_TRACKING_ID', {
'page_path': location.pathname + location.hash
});
Or you can use Google Tag Manager to get the fragment, more info here: https://www.simoahava.com/gtm-tips/track-url-fragments-as-pageviews/
Then you can handle it as you like or replace the # to the ? with a filter.

Answer 3

After digging into Google analytics and Google tag manager i found the solution. Solution was very easy in my case.
For every search, search term was updating in the url fragment. In the below case, i searched for boxtest18 and url updated like below.
https://mydomian.net/search#q=boxtest18
For this, i had crerated a Tag in Google tag manager and triggered it on history change event. That resovled my problem.
Here are the steps.
In google tag manager i have added new tag and filled highlighted info.
Fragment value is a variable which i created.
For the new tag i have created the triggering event as shown below.
And make sure you have the tracking code script and Google tag manager script in your web page. That's it. Hope it helps someone.