mysociety/theyworkforyou — pull request #349 by jacksonj04 (2014-01-13 23:10:37+00:00)
Title: Change to Search Parameters

Changes to replace the site's default search parameter from search forms with ?q instead of ?s.

* Closes #330

## Why?

The ?s parameter is used throughout the site not only for search, but also for highlighting on subsequent results pages. In addition, ?s is used when linking to search results pages, and in incoming AdWords links.

Replacing ?s with ?q allows Google Analytics to give us a better picture of internal site searches without any skew from these internal links, since it is only ever used to perform a user search.

**Isn't ?pop a good alternative?**

The ?pop parameter is used to exclude a search from internal logging. It is not easily possible to make Google Analytics exclude these results from internal search analysis.

**Isn't internal search logging good enough?**

Internal search logs require significant additional work to analyse in the same depth as Google Analytics, and do not offer us the ability to easily track behaviour such as search refinements or allow us to apply user segmentation.

**Will this break incoming links?**

No. Search should still respond to ?s queries as before.

**Will this break highlighting?**

No. Highlighting of both search results pages and the pages following a search click should still work as before using the ?s parameter.