The
Importance of Referrer Logs
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
LogMeIn
SmartFTP
FTP
Voyager
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
Referrer
Soft
Log
Analyzer
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.
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