[thechat] analog search query stats

[rudy]

just a quick note to thank the folks that recommended analog to pull search
strings out of my raw log files

after installation, the first thing i did was click on the analog executable
(i'm using win2kpro), and i got this little command window that flashed up
and then disappeared!

so i had to take a deep breath... and rtfm

a few hours later -- my god that documentation is complex and convoluted --
i finally got what i wanted

i had to edit the config file to include these commands --

  SEARCHQUERY ON
  SEARCHQUERYFLOOR 1R

the second command was necessary to see all the search strings, the default
is to show the top 30 or something like that -- and it's the oddball ones i
wanted to see

what were people searching for when they came to my site?

here are the top 10 search strings since wednesday this week (2.5 days) --

reqs: search term
----: -----------
   7: cumulative sum sql
   5: date difference using sql query
   5: sql date calculation
   4: autonumbers access finding the last
   4: sql max record from a group of related records
   3: updating rows based on another table
   3: oracle updating one column from another
   3: sorting records by date in sql
   3: selecting duplicate records sql
   3: transact sql tutorial

i ran it again on a whole month of logs and got basically the same
results --

reqs: search term
----: -----------
  17: select z index
  15: microsoft access memo field lengths
  15: cartoon bubble
  13: rudy
  12: favicon ie6
  10: quatsch
   9: force page breaks netscape
   8: sybase sql select statement first record
   8: ms access finding last date
   8: voice hack

were there any oddball ones? yes, quite a few...

rudy or imperfect or angry or haphazardness or blossoms
adrian roselli snow
trouser or choppy or stockton or rudy or nationwide
good personal site design    ;o)
interchange or rudy or electrocutes or mayor or verbalize
buh bye
fol or celticize or rudy or programmable or hollowness
hack sql tutorial (12 hits for variations of this one!)
www.rudy.ca (yup, a search string to find a web site)
rudy or code or bellatrix or accuracy or sinning
related:http://f2o.org/ (wtf? how did this lead to my site?)
rudy or immunization or macroeconomics or balkanize or antihistorical
my personal site

this last one floored me -- how could my lowly site have been anywhere near
the top search results for "my personal site" that somebody would even
bother to page through that far to find it?  so i tried this in google, and
guess who's #10? wil wheaton  #15? zeldman  #23? martin burns  #24  matt
haughey #74 pittsburgh penguins  #76 kid rock  and finally, #87 rudy.ca #88
kynn bartlett #89 superbad #90 thinkgeek

i also got a bunch of hits like
  resume db2 data warehouse toronto
  resume data modelling data warehousing
  data warehouse resume toronto
  consultant web strategy design freelance
and i'm wondering where are the followup calls?  please?