Search engines, keywords, and server logs

Anyway to get the unhelpful engines to play ball?

[androidtech]

I've been scouring my server logs lately and I've noticed something wonderful and sad at the same time. Many of the search engines are kind enough to pass through the user's search term in the search arguments following the referring document URL. For a sample log entry of the referring document URL:

"http://www.smart_search_engine.com/?term=frozen+monkeys"

This is great because you can see what keywords people are using to get to your site!

However, many of them aren't. Is there anything a webmaster can do to get this extra information from the unhelpful search engines?

Some XML or SOAP feed to query?

Someone you can write to or beg?

Anything?

thx

[jeremy goodrich]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Problem is, if they aren't passing the keyword string to your site / there is no way to get it, because the info comes from the user / who types in their query and the GET or POST action in the form of the search engine.

I forget, off hand, which it is that passes the info / and which doesn't, but that is the difference.

Kind of annoying, though, when that info isn't passed.