Tracking Optimized SEO Pages

Subdomains vs. Etags

[bnhasia]

We have a dynamic site that has trouble getting properly indexed/ranked, so we are creating some optimized pages for Google . We will put these on www.example.com so the pages enjoy some association with www.example.com's PR. We have done this successfully in the past.

Here's the rub: I need to figure out how to track this down the lead level (so we now how many leads this generated). Here are my options:

Cookie-based tracking in the URL:
I can set session cookie tracking in the URLs I submit to Google (e.g. www.example.com/greatseopage.html?etag=googleseo) but I am not sure if this is allowed? Does Google penalize pages with "?" marks? I read in another forum that they do not, but I rarely see "?" links in the top 10.

Subdomain tracking:
We use subdomains for tracking purposes, where we have identical content on the subdomains (e.g. google.example.com for Google PPC). The subdomains never link to each other, or to the www site. I could make all the links on the optimized pages go to search.oursite.com. But will this hurt the ranking of the optimized pages or - far worse - somehow reflect badly on the whole www.example.com?

Any advice on which way to go, or other alternatives are appreciated!

bnhasia

[edited by: pageoneresults at 4:17 pm (utc) on May 6, 2005]
[edit reason] Examplified URI References [/edit]

[smokey99]

Why not use free stats tracking from someone like masterstats.com I have used them for a while and find it so much easier than log files or anything else I have found.

You just insert their code in your html at the bottom of pages you want to track, and Voila, all the stats you ever wanted.

Good luck

Smokey

[waverider]

Using optimized static HTML lading pages in a dynamic site is common technique.

About tracking, as smokey99 said, why not just use a statistics script like Awstats or other desktop application that give more in depth analysis.

In Awstats you can see what phrases the visitors searched on SE when coming to your site. You can also see page views per specific page. I am a fan of Awstats, but I am starting to see its limitation. It is probably the best open source stats script. But now I am starting to feel the need for more detailed data and more filters: stats per day/year, stats per keyphrase per day per engine etc. I heard of a few good desktop application for web logs analysis. Should try some soon.

If you’re looking for a way to see the conversation rate as well this could be easily be implemented in your site, though it depends on what shopping cart you’re using. (I assume you’re selling something or at least trying to get your users to subscribe to a newsletter or something).
Implementing this kind of script should be able to tell you what percentage of the users that came from Google searching California foo actually did the desired action etc etc

I am sure that there are scripts availabe for the above task. Haven't used any ready made script for this.

[mikelly]

A free one that does a good job...

Let me know if you find one, I only know of the paid ones

[isorg]

bnhasia, both these techniques are probably going to be unreliable, as it is not so easy to control how the SEs spider, assess and use your page/URLs.

Perhaps the best way would be to place code at the top of your dynamic pages, which would place a database entry for each page request. Then you can build up a log and see which page was refered by which google search term. You will find the results very interesting.