True tracking for membership site - Keywords

When user signs up their referal url is passed along.

[EliteWeb]

Here I am thinking, how hard would it be to setup a site or change a existing site to pass along the refer log when a user signs up.

One of the most asked questions when signing up besides of course your name is where you found out about this site.

I want to write a membership based site to log the referal log or even better pull the keywords out of the referal log if it is a search engine.

The fact is I want to know how many people from the search engines came to my site, they never fill out the space that asks how they heard about the site or how they found it.

I want to pass along the keyword found in the refer log if it is a known search engine so when the user signs up it will be inserted into database and can be used later.

Can it be done, does it have to be cookie based? I dont think it does, PHP handles refers just fine and if you pass it along like a defined variable within the site it could be done.

Found through:

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Search Engine ¦ Keyword
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Google - Webmaster discussion

[mark_roach]

That sounds like a very good idea good idea. Personally I would go with the cookies option. You could log the IP address instead of the referal string when you come accross a surfer with cookies turned off. That way you could back track through your raw logs to find out the relevant info. You may also get an insight in to the habits of people who surf and do not accept cookies.

Alternatively you could log the the referal string to a file, probably keyed in someway on IP address and retrieve that info when the person signs up.