Organic v. AdWords Refering Google URL?

Is the AdWords referring url different from unpaid/organic referrals?

[166geary]

Hey there,

Hate to sound like a newbie, but I havent been able to find this info. anywhere:

Basically, on the server web logs, can we see a difference from users who came from AdWords Google versus Organic Google?

Checking on Google itself, I have seen that it looks like for unpaid, I basically see the referring url as: "http://www.google.com/search?...".

AdWords, appears to be coming from something like:
- "http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.adwordsuser.com...
or
- "http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/adclick?adurl=http://www.adwordsuser.com..."

Is this correct?

Am I confusing all y'all? sorry, if I have

I know Google has its own tracking and such. But, I am working on getting HitBox to "learn" what is organic v. cpc click-through, beyond the use of destination URLs.

Thanks a lot for your help!

[bakedjake]

Google AdWords ROI tracking uses the googleadservices domain.

Beyond that, I think Google uses q= for both adwords and organic on the new interface (they seem to be tracking all clicks).

On the old interface, if the referrer is /search?, then it's a search URL.

[166geary]

Hey there,

Thanks for replying!

I assume when talking about the "new interface", you are talking about that new MSNish looking interface they are testing?

Also, I actually do see that some of the sponsored links have googleadservices.com, while others dont. I just did a quick check using online degress as the keywords, and it has both url?q= and googleadservices.com. Seems odd. Am I missing something here?

Thanks

[globay]

I would use a specific URL to track Adwords ROI. Just attach an id to your url to track how the user came to your site, for example.

If a user has referrer turned off, then you can't how the visitor came to your site by looking at the log files, as far as I know. But if you use a tracking URL (domain.com/site?campain=name&id=123), then u certainly will know.

[Gorilla]

In my experience AdWords (Google Search) and organic traffic look just the same in server logs unless you do something to mark the traffic arriving via AdWords.

One easy way to mark traffic is to append a special argument to the destination address. Say you site is

http://www.example.com/

, make the URL be

http://www.example.com/?adwords

. (Your CMS should be able to handle an unexpected argument.) This is not a perfect solution because people may bookmark the landing page and when they revisit through the bookmark you'll not be able to distinguish this from a visitor arriving via AdWords.

A better solution may be to send AdWords visitors to a script redirecting them via HTTP 301 to the correct page. Then you can analyse the web log for the redirect script for information on visitors arriving via AdWords.

[166geary]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all of your input. We are using unique destination URLs, e.g.: widget.html?google-adwords. But, we also need to track via referring URL.

So, what is everyone's opinion? Can you really see the difference between AdWords and Organic Google in referring URL in the web logs files?

Thanks for all of your help!