Google and LogFiles

I hate to ask, but I have searched and searched and...

[Eric in Tennessee]

When looking at your logs,
how do you know if the search came from Google organic,
or google adwords?

I am just learning about logfiles, so please excuse my ignorance (it seems like I type that a lot, maybe I ought to put it in my signature) :)

----------------------------------------------------------

I am just learning about _________, so please excuse my ignorance.

eTN

[ukgimp]

Run an experiment. Do both .

The other possibility is setting up a tracking code that goes on the end of the adwords ad.

url.com/product1.htm?ref=adwords

Or you could send it to a file that logs the entry and then referers the visitor to the actual page.

You could start to get indepth and track each keyword from adwords and see how it converts.

HTH a little or givse you an idea.

[Eric in Tennessee]

First off, thank you for responding so quickly.

So am I to understant that this:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=
navclient&client=REAL-tb&q=keyword+keyword

could be either from google pure search or adwords?

eTN

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=keyword+keyword&btnG=Google+Search

this one is a little different.

[edited by: Eric_in_Tennessee at 8:26 am (utc) on Nov. 21, 2003]

[ukgimp]

Eric

Dont have a clue :)

I have never run enough adwords to require me to check out or had proper access to the stats to allow me. To be honest it would be interesting to know. But Adding the variable at the end of the url in adwords would work.

[Eric in Tennessee]

Thanks UKgimp,

I will post to this thread after I figure it out.

eTN

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

The referrer is what was visible in the address bar the moment someone clicked the link. I get quite some traffic generated from adwords, but it's in no way recognizable as such.

[Mark_A]

Eric one of the easiest ways is to make a copy of your target html page and point adwords at that.

So if its an index.html page make a copy of it for example as index1.html or whatever and then point your google adwords campaign at that page rather than your normal index page.

Now you can just search your logs for index1.html
- compare key terms and
- compare hits to that page with clicks reported in adwords

etc

hth

[Eric in Tennessee]

Thanks to everyone that responded.

I think that I am going to try adding the tag onto the end of each destination URL for adwords and see what happens. I will problably use a few words that no one has clicked on the past month or so, that way if I mess it up I won't lose any real traffic.

Thankx all,

eTN

[TomWaits]

make a copy of your target html

Then you have to assume that spiders obey your command to ignore that page and index the right one. With all the new spiders around, that's not a risk I'd want to take, be it weird penalties, or including both pages in SERPS, or...

[Mark_A]

TomWaits .. if I make a copy of an index page and rename it, links may point from within the site to the original page which a spider may follow but they will not point to the new copy of the page from the site.

The only link to the new page will be from the adwords advert.

I guess a valid question might be

"does google spider its own adwords links from its own serps pages or adsense republishers?"

checking some logs ...

One site that also uses adwords targetting a unique landing page has had 5 discrete page views from googlebot arriving from syndicated adverts, i.e. adsense ads on publishers sites since April 2003. Thats 5 individual requests for pages one on the 11th and two on 15th April 03 and two more on the 24th of October 03 .. compared to thousands of normal googlebot page requests in the same period.

It does not look like that those 5 requests should have been made.

Another site which also uses adwords and targets a unique landing page has had no hits on that page from googlebot at all.

Both sites had thousands of normal page requests during the period by googlebot.

Unless someone knows otherwise I dont this its a risky strategy at all, its very simple and it seems to work.

[ogletree]

what I do is that when a person submits a form we attach info from a cookie when they came in. The cookies has thier IP, the referer they cam from and the page they landed on when they first came in. We use tracking URL's on PPC so we know which one came from organic and which came from PPC.

Also don't forget if you make changes to your adwords you will drop off all the partner sites like AOL until they approve it and that may take a while during the holidays.

[edited by: ogletree at 10:44 pm (utc) on Nov. 25, 2003]

[Mark_A]

re any other perhaps non google spiders following adwords ads to a unique landing page ...

just imagine how much that could cost us :-)!

I think there was a thread about "click bots" in here recently ...

I cannot see evidence of any of any non google spiders or other bots at the moment in my logs for these landing pages or adwords accounts.! :-)

[GuinnessGuy]

Greetings,

By making a duplicate page under a different file name, won't you trip the duplicate content filter? I think a much better way is to make a redirect page that takes a customer to your regular index page. That way, you will be able to see how many clicked on your adwords without risking getting caught for duplicate content.

GuinnessGuy

[Mark_A]

GuinnessGuy how will you trip a duplicate filter if ..

1. the only link to that page from anywhere in the internet is from the google adwords advert?

2. No spiders have found any of these pages in 12 months [1]

Mark

note [1] apart from (as mentioned above) an abberation of 5 page requests from googlebot from an adsense site which will have cost us money and as such I am concerned about because [2].

[2] common sense says that googlebot should not be clicking adwords adverts on google pages or adsense pages.