But that doesn’t tell you what works (and what doesn’t work) with the way that you’ve set up your ads or the placement that you’re using for the ads. If you want to know what trends seem to be influencing your revenue, here’s another way to go about it. Tracking your Web site traffic — more specifically, tracking what brings people to your site, what takes them away, and
what they do while they’re on your site — is the best way to get a feel for the trends that affect your AdSense revenues. To track all that, you have to put in some work or find a really good program.
Which of those options you decide to use is determined by you. What are you more comfortable with? You can track everything and extract all that information from the logs that are available on your server, or you can let someone else do all the hard work for you so that all you have to do is take a look at the data that’s been gathered. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately what it comes down to is whether a service (like Google Analytics) can provide all the data that you need. Such a service might not, and if that’s the case, you have only
one option: Roll up your sleeves and do it on your lonesome. Understanding Server Logs
Let me put it to you straight: The most difficult way to track traffic on your Web site is through your server logs. Server logs are also the only way to get certain types of in-depth detail about your site. I guess you need to know what sever logs are though before I get too deep into what you can do with them. A server log — more accurately a Web server log — is a group of files automatically generated by a server that tracks statistics about the traffic on your
Web site. This group of files might contain information on where a user came to your site from, what pages on your site she visited, how long she spent on each site, and even more detailed information like what country she lives in (or the country her Internet access account is registered in) and some of the specifications about the browser she’s using.
Server logs are a complicated mess of facts and information that most people just can’t read. Seriously. You have to be one step above a NASA geek to understand all the gibberish contained in a server log.
Because most people won’t ever reach that level of geekiness, some programs — log analyzers or log parsers — take all that data, analyze it, and then spit out more understandable statistics. Programs like AWStats (which is free, available at www.awstats.sourceforge.net) and Summary (which is free to try but can be costly to own, available at www.summary.net) can give
you the information you seek from the raw data that the server collects. Even though these programs are easier to use than trying to figure out server logs on your own, they’re still not the easiest programs available. With AWStats, for example, you get to track your Web site statistics, but you have to have access to your Web server to use it. It’s also requires a little more
technical knowledge than some of the other Web site statistics programs that are available — like Google Analytics. Still, if you’re ready to take on this program, it can potentially provide very in-depth analyses of the data that is collected in your server logs. I’m not ready to jump too deep into this pool right now, though. You’ll find more information on AWStats in the “Installing
AWStats” section, later in this webpage
I’ll be honest with you. Working with log analyzers can sometimes seem nearly as complicated as just trying to use the raw data coming from the server. Most log analyzers require that code be added to your Web site or Web server and then the reports have to be programmed before you can receive them.
On the flip side, server log analyzers can allow you to parse server data in ways that some other programs won’t let you. With this technology, you can design reports that meet very specific needs (if you know how). For example, if you need a report that not only tells you what page of your Web site that visitors entered on but also what time of day they came to your site most
often, you can program a report to divulge that kind of information. If you’re using a program like AWStats, the first thing to understand is that log analyzers count visitors differently than analytics programs do — one like Google Analytics, for example. AWStats looks at the IP address — the unique numerical address of a computer on the Internet, kind of like a street address
for your house — of each site visitor. If one person visits your site a number of different times, AWStats counts that as only a single visitor. By comparison, a program like Google Analytics tracks computers by placing a cookie on the hard drive. That means that if a user clears out his browser cache — that’s a record of the sites the user visited using that computer — or if the
user logs in from another computer, Google Analytics counts him as more than one visitor. Looking at IP addresses is a little more accurate because even if a user clears his cache, the IP address for his computer remains the same. (Logging in from a different computer is still a problem, but as far as I know, there’s no way around that kind of user being counted more than once with any stats program.)
Next, understand that programs like AWStats are more about the numbers than what can actually be extrapolated from those numbers. For example, with AWStats, Web crawlers are identified according to a list of crawlers defined by the log analyzer. Usually, a person creates the list, and the program then compares data against that list to determine which visits are
from Web crawlers and which are from real people. The problem with this approach is that if the list of Web crawlers is not all-inclusive, a crawler could be counted as a visitor. The result, then, is that the number of visitors can be skewed. Because AWStats doesn’t look at things like where a visitor comes from, it’s hard to tell what’s a crawler and what’s a visitor if the crawler
doesn’t appear on the list of excluded IP addresses. On the other hand, Google Analytics does look at where visitors come from. And Web crawlers have very specific origins, so it’s usually pretty easy to tell which of your visitors are people and which are programs that are designed
to crawl a Web site.
Installing AWStats
AWStats is a free program that’s available from SourceForge. To download the program, go to http://awstats.sourceforge.net. After you download it, install it.
If you’re planning to use AWStats to track your Web site traffic statistics, you must have access to your Web server. Unless you own that server (or your company owns the server), you probably don’t have that access. If you’re purchasing a hosting package from a Web site host, AWStats isn’t the right program for you to track your statistics. If that’s the case, you need to use a program, such as Google Analytics, that tracks your statistics without you
having to get access to your Web server.
Assuming you do have access to your Web server, here’s what you’d do to install AWStats:
1. After you download AWStats (from http://awstats.sourceforge.net), find the file and extract the AWStats package. Whatever extraction program (for example, WinZip — available at www.winzip.com) you use will have different instructions for the extraction process, so refer to that program’s documentation if you’re not sure how to use it.
2. If the installation process doesn’t start automatically (it should with Windows Installer but it won’t with any other operating system), locate the AWStats Tools Directory and double-click the awstats_configure.pl script to begin the installation process. Awstats_configure.pl tries to determine your current log format from your Apache Web server configuration file, httpd.conf. (The script asks for the path if it can’t find the file.)
3. If you use a common log, awstats_configure.pl suggests changing that log to the NCSA combined/XLF/ELF format. You can use your own custom log format, but this pre-defined log format is often the best choice and makes setup easier. If you answer yes, awstats_configure.pl modifies your httpd. conf file, restarts Apache to apply the changes, and then creates a
new file called awstats.mysite.conf by copying the template file awstats.model.conf.
These actions should occur automatically (though they may require your confirmation in some areas).
4. To verify that the main parameters of your new configuration file match your needs, open awstats.mysite.conf in your favorite text editor — the file should be located on your hard drive and you can use the search function of your computer to locate it — and make the
following changes, as required: Verify the LogFile value. It should be the full path of your server
log file. Verify the LogType value. It should be W for analyzing Web log files.
Check the LogFormat. It should be set to 1, although you can use a custom log format if you don’t use the combined log format. Set the SiteDomain parameter: It should be set to the main domain name or the intranet Web server name used to reach the Web site
you want to analyze (for example: www.mysite.com). If you have several possible names for the same site, use the main domain name and add the others to the list in the HostAlias parameter.
5. When you’ve finished editing these elements, save the file to its original location.
Installation and configuration are now finished and the wizard should close automatically.
You may have to wait a couple days to see results from the log analyzer — and you still have to figure out how the program works if you want to get your results! After a couple days, however, you can begin creating stats reports by going to www.myserver.mydomain/awstats/awstats.pl — it’s a Web-based program. Just remember to replace myserver and mydomain with your own server and domain information. It’s a pretty complicated process, though, so I suggest that you read more about using the program by going to http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_setup.html.
Because Web crawlers change, a log analyzer can occasionally misinterpret a Web crawler as a real person. It’s not a major mistake, but one of which you should be aware.
Tracking Stats with Google Analytics
If you’re asking my opinion about the best programs to use for tracking Web site statistics — go ahead! Ask. — Google Analytics is definitely #1 on my list. It’s easy to use, it’s free, you don’t need access to your Web server, and you don’t have to be an ubergeek to use it. Google Analytics also provides all the statistics that I think you need. (I’ve been known to be wrong a time or two,
but just keep that between you and me.)
Google Analytics started life as Urchin Analytics. Urchin was one of the premier Web site traffic statistics programs available on the Web — at an expensive price. Then Google bought Urchin and made the program available for free. The number of people who adopted it during the first few days of release was overwhelming. Google actually had to close the program to new
users for a time to catch up with demand. It’s no surprise that demand for such a powerful stats program was very high, especially at a cost of exactly nothing. The statistics that are available
through Google Analytics will satisfy almost everyone looking for Web site stats and are certainly enough to help you understand how your AdSense ads are performing.
Understanding Google Analytics quirks
The thing about Google Analytics that’s different from a log analyzer like AWStats is the way that visitors on your site are tracked. Log analyzers tend to track visitors by IP address. Google Analytics actually tracks visitors by placing a cookie — a small snippet of code that acts as a kind of software ID collar — on the visitor’s hard drive. Then, each time the visitor comes to
your site, that cookie is recognized by Google Analytics. The more Web-savvy among readers will immediately see the problem with relying on cookies to get the job done. A cookie is only trackable as long as it’s on the visitor’s hard drive. So, if a visitor comes to your site, clears out
his Internet history, and then returns to the site in the same day, that user is tracked as two different users. Numbers can get a little screwy.
Most people don’t clean out Internet histories on a daily basis — some never clean out them at all — but that’s one of the issues you should be aware of. Google Analytics also can be fooled by people who set their browsers to not accept cookies at all. It’s a privacy issue. Some believe that when a company (any company) is tracking their movements on the Web, their privacy
is invaded. On principle, they edit their browser preferences so that the browser won’t accept any cookies. (Editing your preferences is a snap to do, in case you’re wondering.) I don’t necessarily buy into that school of thought, but I can understand why some people would feel that way.
Regardless of whether you understand the anti-cookie stand of some folks, the fact still remains that a percentage of your site visitors may have set up their browsers to reject cookies. If that’s the case, Google Analytics can’t track those people. It’s a small percentage, but again, enough that you should be aware it’s a possibility.
Even with these issues, Google Analytics remains my favorite Web site traffic statistics program. Because it’s free and easy to install, I recommend that everyone at least try it for a month or two. If you don’t like it, you can always move on to something else.
Intrinsically, the difference between log analyzers and programs like Google Analytics mostly involves methodology. Which program you use is determined by what you’re looking for. I much prefer programs like Google Analytics over log analyzers because, as far as I’m concerned, the information that I need is covered by Google Analytics. You may not feel that way, and that’s okay. Just choose the program that works best to meet your specific tracking needs.
Installing Google Analytics
Google Analytics, like all Google programs, is easy to install. It requires that you register for the program and then install the tracking code. Easy-peasy. Here are the basics for getting started with the program:
1. Point your browser to www.google.com/analytics. The Google Analytics home page appears.
2. Click the Sign Up Now link. A sign-up page appears.
3. If you already have a Google account, sign into Google Analytics with that account. If you don’t have an account, register a new account with Google.
4. After you sign in, click the Sign Up button (as shown in Figure M1). You’re taken to the New Account Signup page.
Figure M1
5. In the New Account Signup page, enter your Web site’s URL, an account name (this can be any name you choose), your time zone location, and your actual time zone into the appropriate text fields and then click Continue.
6. In the new page that appears, enter your contact information (including name, telephone number, and country) and then click Continue. The User Agreement page appears.
7. Read through the user agreement, and if you agree with the terms of service, select the Yes, I Agree to the Above Terms and Conditions check box and then click Create New Account.
You now have an Analytics account, but you’re still not quite done. A new page appears, displaying your tracking code, as shown in Figure M2. This snippet of code is how Google Analytics tracks the visitors to your Web pages.
8. Copy the code provided and paste it into the HTML of your Web site immediately before the tag of the site. Now, you’re really finished.
After you place the tracking code on your Web site, it could take a couple days before you begin to see any statistics about the site on Google Analytics — stuff like number of visitors, where they came from, and how long they stayed on your site. Even then, the statistics aren’t really valuable beyond telling you who’s been to your site. There’s nothing historical to compare the statistics against.
Getting the real value of Google Analytics takes at least 30 days — long enough to have enough information to compare timeframes and see what a normal baseline for your site is.
After you allow enough time to establish a baseline, you can really tell what tweaks are valuable in terms of bringing in more site traffic — and seeing what may be pushing traffic off your site. For example, if you have a high percentage of your visitors leaving your site on a specific page, you know that there’s something about that page that could be turning your visitors off, so
you can tweak the page to try to hold them on the site longer.
Figure M2
Analyzing Analytics
After you set up your Google Analytics account and have a few days to collect numbers, the true value of the program starts to shine through. This section shows you how to put that value to use.
When you log on to your account from the www.google.com/analytics/page, the first screen that you see is a Dashboard overview of your available stats, as shown in Figure M3.
Figure M3
These stats are, by default, the stats most folks consider important when it comes to Web site traffic numbers. You may not be like most folks though, which is why you’re free to add other snapshots to the Dashboard if you’d rather see something there. One thing you can’t do, however, is remove or replace the Site Usage stats that you see at the top of the page. These are
fixed permanently in place. You can change the dates shown in the Site Usage section — the default dates always show the previous month. You’ll find a handy navigation menu on the left side of the page, right under the Dashboard heading. This menu collapses and expands, according to where you click it. As shown in Figure M4, clicking one of the headings in the menu expands the menu so you can see additional reports that are available under that heading.
Figure M4
Of all the reports that are available to you, the most useful ones in terms of tracking AdSense info are found under the Traffic Sources and Content headings. Under Traffic Sources, for example, you can access the following reports:
* Referring Sites: This report, as shown in Figure M5, shows which other Web sites referred visitors to your site. This is important to yourAdSense earnings because in addition to placing the ads on your page,you should also be marketing your site. One way to market your site
is through other Web sites. This report tells you how successful those marketing efforts have been.
* Search Engines: The Search Engines report shows you which search engines sent visitors to your site. Because you know that your site is search engine optimized by keyword, this gives you a glimpse into how well your keywords are helping search engines list your site in search
results.
* Keywords: The Keywords report shows which are the most popular keywords that bring visitors to your site. No better tool is out there for finding out if you’ve chosen the right keywords for your site. You can then use this information to ensure that your site is targeted accurately to the keywords that bring people in. In turn, your AdSense ads will be
further optimized to the correct keywords.
Figure M5
* Top Content: This report lists the most viewed content on your site. Do you want to know what visitors to your site are looking at or how long they’re spending on specific pages? This report tells you. The report, as shown in Figure M6, lists the top URLs. You can then click each of the
URLs to view more in-depth information, such as the time users spend on the page and the number of visitors that exit from that page.
* Top Landing Pages: Landing pages are where a visitor first “touches down” on your site. The Top Landing Pages report shows you exactly which of your pages those are. This is useful in a couple different ways.
First, if you’re conducting marketing with a specific entry page, you can track how effective that marketing is. Second, this information is helpful when you want to know what pages users seem to be finding on their own, especially if you’re not conducting any marketing campaigns.
Figure M6
don’t put ads on every page on their site. Instead, they place ads on certain, optimized pages. This report, as shown in Figure M7, lets you know if those pages are where visitors are leaving your site. It’s not a guarantee that your ads are working, but it’s definitely an indicator that
your ads could be performing well. You can use this information along with the data provided in AdSense reports to see which pages seem to be working better for ads.
* Site Overlay: For AdSense information, the Site Overlay is my favorite of all Google Analytics reports. The Site Overlay report literally overlays your Web site with a graphic that shows you which links on the site are most clicked, as shown in Figure M8. Above all other reports, this one is the most telling of how well your AdSense ads actually work.
Figure M7
Figure M8
Remember that Google Analytics alone won’t tell you everything you need to know about how your AdSense ads perform. Combine your AdSense stats — the ones found in your AdSense reports, which I cover in next webpages with your Google Analytics stats and then you can get a clear picture of what’s working and what’s not.
Keep in mind that it takes some time to establish a baseline from which you can determine which efforts seem to be working and which don’t.
Channeling with AdSense
When you’re tracking what works and what doesn’t in AdSense, you soon discover that no single tracking method works best. Instead, a combination of tracking technologies helps you gather all the data you need. In addition to a Web site traffic statistics program, such as those I discuss earlier in this webpage, AdSense offers another method of tracking that can help you determine
which ads perform best — channels.
Google explains channels this way:
Channels enable you to view detailed reporting about the performance of specific pages and ad units. By assigning a channel to a combination of pages or ad units, you could track the performance of a leaderboard versus a banner, or compare your motorcycle pages to your automobile pages. You can even create a channel to track each of your separate domains, so you
can see where your clicks are coming from. While channels can be used to track performance and revenue, they won’t have any effect on your earnings or ad targeting.
The way you use channels is determined by how you want to track your ads and by the revenues generated from those ads. You can track them by ad, page, and even Web site — whatever works best for you. When you have that information, you can cross-compare it to your Web site traffic statistics to figure out even more about what’s working and what’s not.
Understanding AdSense channels AdSense offers two different types of channels: URL channels and custom channels. URL channels track your AdSense ads by URL. You can track either
single pages or you can use the top URL (www.sitename.com) to track every page within a Web site.
Custom channels allow you to track specific ads, according to parameters that you define. You can use a single custom channel to track multiple ads on multiple Web sites, as well.
When using channels to track your AdSense ads, the code that’s generated for your ad differs slightly from what would be generated if you weren’t tracking the ads with a specific channel. However, the code should still be pasted into your Web site or blog in the same manner that you added code that isn’t tracked by channels.
Creating effective channels
One very useful facet of using channels is that these differentiators allow you to track the effectiveness of changes that you might be testing in your ads.
For example, if you’re running two sets of ads on your page, one with borders and one without, you can assign different channels to these ads to see which performs better.
Here’s a hint: Ads without borders nearly always perform better than ads with borders. Taking the border away seems to make some site visitors more willing to give an AdSense ad a try — maybe because it doesn’t really look much like an ad.
The first thing you need to do when you decide to use channels is to figure out exactly what purpose the channels have.
Why do you want to use channels?
Do you want to see how well a specific ad design is performing? Or do you want to track how effective ads on a specific page of your site are?
After you determine what you want to track with channels, you can begin to create the channels that will serve your needs. You can create up to 200 different channels in your AdSense account, and after you create a channel, you can rename, deactivate, or delete it completely if you’re no longer using it.
The next few sections give you all the details.
When you start to create a new channel, the process is set to create channels for AdSense for Content ads. You have the option to create channels for Referrals and Mobile Content, too. If you choose to create a channel for one of the other types of AdSense, click the blue linked tab for that option. AdSense for Search is the only type of ad that you can’t create a URL channel for.
Creating URL channels
Creating AdSense channels is an easy enough procedure. When you’re creating URL channels, have the specific URL that you want to track. If you want to track a whole site under a single URL, the top-level Web address is the one that you need to use. If you’re tracking a specific page on your Web site, be sure you have the exact URL for the page that you want to track. With that
information in hand, here’s how you can create your first URL channel:
1. Log in to your AdSense account and go to the AdSense Setup tab.
2. Click the Channels link on the AdSense Setup tab. You’re taken to the Channels overview page, as shown in Figure M9.
3. Click the URL Channels link.
The page view refreshes to show URL channels that have been previously
created (if there are any).
4. Click the + Add New URL Channels link.
The page refreshes to show a form for entering URLs, as shown in Figure M10.
Figure M9
Figure M10
Make sure you only enter one URL per line.
To track a single page: Enter the full URL (example.com/sample. html)
To track a script that generates multiple pages: Enter the full path of the script, without the ? (example.com/sample.asp?keyword=one) (example.com/sample)
To track only pages across a specific subdomain: Enter the subdomain (sports.example.com)
To track all pages on a domain: Enter the domain name (www.example.com)
To track all impressions and clicks across the domain (including any existing subdomains): Enter the domain name without the www (example.com)
6. After you enter the desired URLs, click the Add Channels button. Now you have URL channels available to you if you want to use them to track your ads.
Adding older ads to a channel
After you create a channel to use for tracking, the ads that already exist on your Web site aren’t automatically tracked. Instead, you have to update those ads or create new ones. To edit ads:
1. Log in to your AdSense account and go to the AdSense Setup tab.
2. Click the Manage Ads link.
3. On the Manage Ads page, select the ad that you would like to edit.
You’re taken to a page that looks like the original setup wizard for the ad except that it’s all contained on a single page, rather than on several pages.
4. Make the changes that you want to make — in this case, you’re choosing a channel from the drop-down menu.
5. When you’re finished, click the Save button at the bottom of the page. That’s it. Editing your ads really is that easy. And if it’s new ads that you’re working with, you can find more information about creating a new ad in earlier webpages.
Creating custom channels
You create custom channels pretty much the same way you create URL channels. The difference is that with custom channels, you use a specific channel name rather than a URL. When you’re creating your custom channels, use descriptive names for the channel. For example, if you’re testing large rectangles against link units, you can create two channels, naming one Large
Rectangles and one Link Units. When it’s time to see the reports broken down by channel, there’s no doubt what each channel refers to.
Here are the steps for creating custom channels:
1. Log in to your AdSense account and go to the AdSense Setup tab.
2. Click the Channels link at the top of the tab. You should be taken automatically to the Custom Channels page, but if you’re not, click the Custom Channels link.
3. Click the + Add New Custom Channels link.
You’re taken to a channel creation page, like the one shown in Figure M11.
4. Enter the desired name for the channel and then select whether to allow the channel to be shown to advertisers as an ad placement.
If you choose to allow the ad placement option, the channel is shown as available for advertisers to place cost-per-impression ads — ads for which you’ll be paid based on the number of people who see the ads.
5. If you choose to show the channel to advertisers, the form you’re filling out expands, as shown in Figure M12. Enter the requested information and then click the Add Channel button.
If you don’t choose to show the channel to advertisers, you can move on to the next step.
You’re returned to the front channel page where you began, but now you see the channel you created listed below the + Add New Custom Channels option.
Figure M11
Figure M12
After you create a custom channel, you can go through the same process you used for URL channels to add ads customized to the channel or to edit existing ads. (See the preceding section, “Creating URL channels,” for more info.)
Tracking your AdSense results should be a regular part of your AdSense activities. Through tracking these results, you discover your successes —and failures. As with any technology, throwing it on the Web without thought of what works and what doesn’t isn’t likely to get you anywhere. But with some consistent effort, and tracking, you’ll figure out what works and what
doesn’t. Then you can make the most of your AdSense efforts.
