Watch Your Server Logs

Posted on January 21, 2007 11:21 PM by Joel Comm

I love checking my server stats. It always turns up a ton of great information. Sure, I can see how much traffic I’ve received, where my users are in the world and, more importantly, how they reached my site -- and all of that information is hugely valuable.

But mixed into all that data is often a bunch of details that just have me scratching my head.

Like the search terms that have brought people onto my pages.

Some of the terms I see listed on my stats have absolutely nothing to do with the content of my Web pages. I actually have to go to those pages and look through the content to find out how a search for that term brought that user to my site. Often, it will be a sentence that I tossed in as an aside and which caught the robot’s eye.

After all the effort we put in to climbing the search engines for our chosen keywords, it’s funny to discover that we can have good rankings for terms that we would never have even considered.

So what can you do with that information? If you discover, for example, that your site about cars is getting hits from people looking for information about “sinks,” how can you turn those clicks into cash.

The first problem is figuring out whether you should even bother to try. If you’re only getting one or two visitors a month looking for that search term, then it might not be worth the effort of turning a high ranking for an obscure search term into income. But if the search term looks popular and if you’re getting a steady stream of users clicking through, then it might be worth playing around and seeing if you can do something about it.

For example, you could create a stand-alone page with an article just on that topic. You wouldn’t need to update it but you would need to make sure the ads are visible, effective and high-paying. Even if it only gives you a few extra dollars a week, that’s a couple of free lattes your luck has brought you.

What you certainly want to do though is make sure that that search term isn’t throwing your contextualized ads. If your car site is getting ads for sinks and bathroom equipment because the robot has picked up on the wrong keywords, it’s going to cost you more than a few cups of coffee.

You might be able to pick a few extra bucks with a lucky keyword, but you definitely don’t want to lose any.

See Also

Keywords or Content? - Dec 28, 2006
Web Traffic Machines - Feb 29, 2008

1 Comments For This Post

  1. Thomas Says:

    I am victim of a vigilante click attack
    I am innocent
    HONEST AND LOYAL TOO!!
    I was banned like small bad clicks frauder!!
    I am So So So HONEST!!!!!!!!
    I NEVER click on my own ads!!!
    It s not so please to me feel like coupable!!!!!!!
    I ask my support website provider SiteSell.com SBI how to
    Make a change on my website URL
    From http://www.google-way.com
    To
    https://www.google-way.com
    Why Google do no provide the real support help
    It more easy to banne someone than to give him the real solution
    To be protected from fraude clickers!
    It not the end of the world!!
    Lol I will survive on Google !! Never mine
    Thomas

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INFORMATION

Joel Comm is an Internet entrepreneur who has been online for over 20 years. In 1995, Joel launched WorldVillage.com, a family-friendly portal to the web which enjoys thousands of visitors each day. Joel is the co-creator of ClassicGames.com, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 1997, and now goes by the name Yahoo! Games. Since then, Joel's company, InfoMedia, Inc., has launched dozens of web sites which offer online shopping, free stuff, website reviews and more. Joel is the author of many popular books, including the NY Times Best-Seller, The AdSense Code. He regularly makes appearances at Internet marketing conferences and seminars.