Searching - Logging What Visitors Search For

WebCatalog 1.6.1 Note: WebCatalog 2.0 no longer logs searches automatically. If you want to track statistics about how databases are being searched, then you must put some WebDNA tags into your search results template to accomplish the same task.

WebCatalog 2.0 does not "know" what searches are important to keep track of, so it makes no attempt to log every search or database access the way WebCatalog 1.6.1 did. It is easy, however, for you to track as much or as little information about how people look through your databases.

To log every search of a particular database, put an [AppendFile] context somewhere in your search results template. An example might look like the following:

-----------Results.tpl File-----------
Your search for [woDescriptiondata] found [numFound] items:
[FoundItems]
[SKU], [Description], [Price]<br>
[/FoundItems]

[AppendFile WebCatalog.log][Date]	[Time]	[Command]	[woDescriptiondata]
[/AppendFile]
----------------------------------------

If you are careful to format the text in tab-delimited columns and put fieldnames at the top of the log file, you may even use WebCatalog to open the log file as a database. This allows you to create summaries, search, and sort the log information just like any other WebCatalog database.