Site registers a hit each time it's in search results - even with no click

[brakkar]

I never observed this behaviour unless I completely miss the point.

My CMS (drupal) registers referers: it registers the page from where a visitor came to my site.

I was very suprised to notice that each time my site appears on a google search, my CMS registers a hit from google. I tested it myself: I enter keyword in google that will return my site (among others). Each time I do so, my site gets hit. If I hit the google search button 10 times, my cms will register 10 hits.

So does it means that google ping in real time every single url from its search results ? Was it always like that ?

Cordially,
Brakkar

[tedster]

Are you using Firefox? This sounds like prefetch behavior:

Google Enables FireFox Prefetching [webmasterworld.com]

[piatkow]

Thanks Tedster, I wasn't visiting these boards in 2005 and the topic was entirely new to me.

[tedster]

Firefox prefetch is but one of many, many applications and web services that are distorting server log analytics today. All manner of "browsing accelerators" and safety checkers do varous kinds of background prefetching for links on the currently viewed page - which can be Google search results or any other page being viewed.

For more about this, see Why Your Server Log Files are Complete Fiction [webmasterworld.com]

[brakkar]

Thanks for your answer.
If it's caused by firefox prefetch, then why it doesn't always happen ?

For exemple, when I do a search on google for "mydomain.com" of course my page comes first in result, but my site doesn't register a hit.

When I search for "keyword1 keyword2" which trigers my home page as first result, my site systematically register a hit.

Why would firefox prefetch in the second scenario, but not the first ? What is the logic behind this ?

Thanks,
Brakkar

[rytis]

When I search for "keyword1 keyword2" which trigers my home page as first result, my site systematically register a hit.

Why would firefox prefetch in the second scenario, but not the first ? What is the logic behind this ?

Thanks,
Brakkar

My guess is, keyword+keyword query has statistical significance to someone, while example.com query - perhaps less. The question is for whom? Google? Mozilla?