views:

32

answers:

3

Does anyone know how I could track what search terms people are using to arrive at my site. For instance, someone searchs google for 'giant inflatable house' and clicks through to my site. I want to be able to capture those keywords and which search engine they came from.

+2  A: 

You should use a tool like Google analytics.

Guillaume Lebourgeois
+1  A: 

You must parse the referer. For exemple a google search query will contains: http://www.google.be/search?q=oostende+taxi&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

It's a real life query, yes I'm in Oostebde right now :)

See the query string. You can determine pretty easily what I was looking for.

Not all search engines are seo friendly, must major players are.

How to get the referer ? It depends on the script language you use.

Pierre 303
I'm using php so $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] should do the trick right? Want to be able to use the keyword data for interacting with my site so google analytics wouldn't really suit. This looks like what I need though, thanks!
Taylor
Yes, I use that too.
Pierre 303
+1  A: 

Besides the Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools is also very useful. It can report a detail analysis of the search queries' impressions, clicks, CTR, position etc.

tszming
This wasn't what I was after but didn't know about webmaster tools so was helpful. thanks
Taylor