Matomo Raw data: "Visits Log" examples

Other parts of Matomo make you wait for hours, unless you enable browser-based archiving.
But your site visit data shows up instantly in Visits Log.

Visits Log is the same as "Raw Data".
What is the difference between RAW data and report data?
​

Site search. This is Matomo automatically detecting any parameter like keyword, search, query, searchword, k, s, or q. I created the raw data by entering the following, one at a time in a browser:

1. ​https://littlefurnace.com/info?q=gggg
2. https://littlefurnace.com/info?query=hhhh
3. https://littlefurnace.com/info?s=iiii
4. https://littlefurnace.com/info?search=kkkk
5. https://littlefurnace.com/info?searchword=LLLL
6. https://littlefurnace.com/info?k=mmmm
7. https://littlefurnace.com/info?keyword=nnnn

I created the raw data above by entering in a browser these:
1. https://littlefurnace.com/index.html
2. https://littlefurnace.com/info?search=Banana

 Notice that it says "2 actions". Only the first one counts as an action:pageview in Matomo.
The second counts as an action:search. 

I created this by cheating. In a browser, I entered https://littlefurnace.com/matomo/matomo.php?rec=1&idsite=1
​I did it twice.  If you do this in your browser you will see a black screen (no actual pageload).  If you want to see your visit, head on over to my website littlefurnace.com and click open-matomo.

First, I set up a couple tags in Matomo Tag Manager.
I configured one tag that uses a Javascript listener to detect any click on the page, even if the click is just on something nonclickable (it detects if you click ANYthing). Its configuration is "event", "click anywhere", "anything anything anything".
Then I made another tag in MTM.  It is "event", "click on a link", "a link - a click, a palpable click" (paraphrasing Polonius, Act 5, Hamlet).  

Now, take a look at the screenshot of Visits Log above. There are a few things going on here.

• I hit "reload" five times.
• I clicked around my website with the mouse, being careful to not click an actual link.
• I reloaded again.
• I left, to an external page at empathytheatreproject.com.
• I came back to my site, clicked blank space on my web page and then clicked a real working link on my website.
• I clicked the outlink again, at empathytheatreproject.com.
  

I took a URL that I usually visit, https://littlefurnace.com/info

Yellow part above
I manually typed a couple mtm tags (mtm_campaign, mtm_medium) and one random tag (author).
Matomo scans incoming URLs for all three of these parameters. If it finds the mtm or utm parameters, Matomo automatically tallies the visit. UTM/MTM URL visits show up in two places: on the left side of visits log, as shown here, and also in the menu under Acquisition >> Campaigns.

Blue part above
I manually typed "author=dickenson" into my URL of the page I was visiting. To Matomo, author is nonsense, unless I set it in the config to be a recognized parameter. So author shows up here.

Red part above
In my browser, I visited three things, in this order
1. I visited https://littlefurnace.com/info?mtm_campaign=mustard&utm_medium=lunchbox&author=dickenson
2. I clicked on KEXP.org. I then closed my littlefurnace.com/info tab completely.
3. I opened a new tab, and I went to littlefurnace.com/info

Pageviews
The session above would have a total of
pageviews = 2
hits = 5