Track custom firefox search engine with google analytics

Question

I made a custom Firefox search engine. It used the code below. Is it possible for me to track the use of this on the site. My concern is that searches form the firefox search engine will look like direct visits in google analytics. I would like to tag the searches or some other solution. I kinda hacked this together i.e. a newbie at this.

<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"&gt;
<ShortName>ICD9 Code Search</ShortName>
<Description>Search ICD9 Code Search</Description>
<Tags>schadenfreude</Tags>
<Image height="16" width="16" type="image/x-icon">https://drchrono.com/favicon.ico&lt;/Image&gt;
<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="https://drchrono.com/billing/medical_codes/?code_type=icd9_procedures&amp;amp;search_text={searchTerms}&amp;amp;Submit=Search&amp;amp;search_hcpcs_level2_codes=on&amp;amp;search_hcpcs_level2_modifiers=on"/&gt;
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<AdultContent>false</AdultContent>
</OpenSearchDescription>

Answer 1

Could you not add a dummy query parameter that does not affect behaviour but can be used when analysing logs? E.g.:

<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="https://drchrono.com/billing/medical_codes/?code_type=icd9_procedures&amp;amp;search_text={searchTerms}&amp;amp;Submit=Search&amp;amp;search_hcpcs_level2_codes=on&amp;amp;search_hcpcs_level2_modifiers=on&amp;amp;source=firefox_se"/&gt;

Answer 2

What you need is called campaign tagging. You can append special arguments to the URL that will be recognized by the Google Analytics script running on your site and collected on GA's Traffic Sources/Campaigns report. There is an online URL builder tool by Google that helps you creating the campaign tags.