Google Referring Query Variable – “The OQ”
Posted on August 2, 2010 by Jexley
Since I have to use StatCounter in addition to Google Analytics, just so that I can get some more detailed user data (on a user-specific basis) I was able to find a potential client in my stats and view how he’d come onto the site and where he went after.
Pretty cool to get that insight into the user’s mind in seeing what he was most interested in before he eventually rang me.
Then I found this in his Referring URL Query String Variables, "&aq=0h&oq=marketing%20&ie=UTF-8&q=marketing%20experts%20perth"
I quickly jumped onto Teh Googs and saw how this li’l bit of data is gathered.
Google Suggest is undoubtedly a very powerful tool, seemingly doing the thinking for me sometimes (I can frequently be heard exclaiming to wife, “Hey, how’d Googs know that I wanted guitar tips for a Powderfinger song when all I typed was ‘pow’?!?”) and it would appear that the “oq” part of the referring query string above shows how much the user typed in before selecting something from the Google Suggest list.
Pretty slick.
So, a nice bit of insight into the mind of a searcher, available right there in your referring URL query string.
Copyright 2012 © Jexley Enterprises - Making web statistics simple.
These Days, Nobody Sees, Living Type
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Powderfinger_songs)
=)
Awesome. It’s like YOU knew too! Vee you’re as smart as Teh Googs!