Breaking: #92993 - Generic search statistics from indexed search removed

See forge#92993

Description

When using TYPO3 Cores built-in Frontend Search ("Indexed Search"), search statistics were written which were never evaluated, but might contain user-specific information about logged-in users and their previously used sessions, which might be conflicting with privacy policies.

The IP Address could be masked via Indexed Search Extension Setting trackIpInStatistic which is now removed, along the database table index_search_stat.

TYPO3 also stores statistics on the searched word, which is evaluated in the TYPO3 Backend, and kept.

Impact

Searching within Indexed Search will only track the searched words, but not additional meta data anymore.

The database table index_search_stat is not available anymore, along with the Extension setting to disable IP address tracking, as nothing is tracked anymore.

Affected Installations

TYPO3 installations using Indexed Search and accessing this information.

Migration

It is recommended to use a more generic and sophisticated analytics tool like Matomo or Google Analytics to track searched terms.