The Importance of Referrer Logs

May
16

Referrer logging is used to allow web servers and
websites to identify where people are visiting them
either for promotional or security purposes. You can
find out which search engine they used to find your
site and whether your customer has come from a
‘linked site’. It is basically the URL of the
previous webpage from which your link was followed.

By default, most hosting accounts don’t include
referrer logs but may be subscribedd for an extra
monthly fee. If your web host does not provide a
graphic report of your log files, you can still
view the referrer logs for your website by logging
into the host server using free or low-cost FTP
software, like these:

FTP Explorer: http://www.ftpx.com
LogMeIn: http://secure.logmein.com/dmcq/103/support
SmartFTP: http://www.smartftp.com/
FTP Voyager: http://www.ftpvoyager.com/

The log file is available on your web server which
can be download into your computer later. You can
use a log analysis tool, like those mentioned below,
to create a graphic report from your log files so
that the files are easier to understand.

Abacre Advanced Log Analyzer http://www.abacre.com/ala/
Referrer Soft http://www.softplatz.com/software/referrer/
Log Analyzer http://www.loganalyzer.net

You can view the files using Word, Word Perfect, txt
or WordPad files even if you don’t have the right
tool. This information is very crucial to your business
and marketing plans and is not advisable to neglect it.

In addition to identifying the search engine or linked
site from where your visitor arrived, referrer logs can
also tell you what keywords or keyword phrases your
client used for searching.

As referrer information can sometimes violate privacy,
some browsers allow the user to disable the sending of
referrer information. Proxy and Firewall software can
also filter out referrer information, to avoid leaking
the location of private websites. This can result in
other problems, as some servers block parts of their
site to browsers that don’t send the right referrer
information, in an attempt to prevent deep linking or
unauthorized use of bandwidth. Some proxy software
gives the top-level address of the target site itself
as the referrer, which prevents these problems and
still not divulging the user’s last visited site.

Since the referrer can easily be spoofed or faked,
however, it is of limited use in this regard except
on a casual basis.