Google publishes a guide to spotting Search traffic in your analytics and server logs

Google has published a new help page for site owners called "Identify Google Search traffic in your web analytics or server logs." It explains how to check whether Google Search is sending visits to your site. You run the check in your own analytics platform or in your server logs, using the HTTP Referer header.

According to Search Engine Roundtable, in a report published on November 12, Google logged the update with the line "We added a new page about how to identify Google Search traffic using HTTP Referer headers." The company says the page was created "to document how site owners can identify and track Google Search traffic in their analytics systems."

What the page covers

The Referer is the header sent when someone clicks a link in Google Search that leads to your site. The page lists which Referer values to look for and how to recognize them in analytics reports and server logs.

It also explains how Google Search sets that header and why it sometimes arrives empty. Another topic is the gap between data sources: the page explains why the numbers you see in analytics may not line up with those in Search Console.

The method is presented as an additional option alongside Search Console. In other words, site owners keep using Google's tool and gain a documented way to cross-check that data against their own records.

What it means for brand teams

If you track how your brand reaches people through search, the page gives you a path, documented by Google itself, to isolate visits from Google Search in your site data. It also warns that some of those visits may arrive without a Referer and that analytics numbers may differ from Search Console, so it pays to read your reports carefully before drawing conclusions.