search queries save in a log file

I need to have a log file or database that records what people are searching for from various forms on our site. So when they search for something, they get to a results page and the database or log file gets written to so I can check to see what the most popular search parameters are.
The server technology I am using is jsp.

thanks

D@VE

request.getheader("Referer") will give you the referer header (i.e. the URL of the page that was searched for) within a JSP or Servlet. For arrivals from Google, and most other search engines, that will include the search terms. But note that the browser user can turn this off so that you can't be certain.

You say that you want to log this information for several pages / forms so it might be better to use your we server's log files instead. If you're running an Apache httpd (say to front an Apache Tomcat) then you should select the "Combined" log file format in httpd.conf which is commented out by default. With a Tomcat server (up to 5.0) this uses a similar mechanism but it has changed from 5,5 - you would need to download log4j from commons and configure it.
There are tools available to analyse common and (in your case) combined log file formats - I use analog, others use awstats - that will give you the reports you need.

From analog - complete search term reports

reqs: search term
-----: -----------
1417: mysql left join
853: perl ftp
796: ip lookup
513: java loops

And search word reports

reqs: search term
-----: -----------
18726: perl
17153: php
13096: mysql
10227: java

Thanks Grahame, what I am after, is tracking what users on my site are inputting into my forms. These forms submit to a third party site (we are a travel company, the forms submit to a company that provides the booking engine for us) Any thoughts on this?

cheers, Dave

If you are thinking in perl you can achieve this using some perl modules for the forum.

Regards
Support Terminal

DaddyO .... You really need a custom solution written in JSP.... I would do some research regarding text file creation / editing using JSP as essentially all you need to do is append a search query to a file each time a search is performed.

Hope this helps.

__________________
Rob - SEO Specialist
Owner & Founder of Webforumz.com

I am currently unavailable for private work

Thanks Rob,

I have just bought a few JSP recipe type books and hopefully I will find what I need in there. I am also salated to take a java prgramming course so maybe the teacher or someone there can guide me further.

regards

Dave