local vs global google visits

[domainguru]

As discussed by Olney previously, Google Analytics does not show whether google visitors are coming via google.com or the local version or google.

Since SERPS appear to vary wildly in Thailand for google.com vs google.co.th, it is very important 4 me to know which version of google to optimize for. Any easy ways to find out whether visitors are coming from google.com or local version? Any other free "stats counters" that can do the job for instance?

[mulligan]

Heres a bit of code for analytics:
http://www.reubenyau.com/google-anal...referring-url/

I haven't tried it so don't know what the story is with it.

[mdw]

check the server logs

[domainguru]

Originally Posted by mulligan

Heres a bit of code for analytics:
http://www.reubenyau.com/google-anal...referring-url/

I haven't tried it so don't know what the story is with it.

Tried it - helps "in general" by showing longer referral URLs but doesn't do what I want.

But .... a quick google search revealed this:

http://www.ga-experts.co.uk/blog/200...e.htm?utm_id=6

a great hack to enable you to define your own list of search engines that GA "understands". You basically just load the GA javascript file in first, then load in your custom javascript file which overwrites the "search engine array" in the GA javascript.

So I modified the list they provided, made it "Thai SE friendly". Just getting it put on the server today / tomorrow, so will get results in the next few days. Will report if it works then and what it reveals.

[Olney]

Things you can look at

1. Language
2. Location

For me the computers are usually Japanese OS except for my developed GEO locations it's usually always Japan in the map. In the case of geo locations I just assume it's a traveling Japanese person.

For languages that the location widely varies it's hard
Perhaps County location? & just assume...

[domainguru]

Originally Posted by Olney

Things you can look at

1. Language
2. Location

For me the computers are usually Japanese OS except for my developed GEO locations it's usually always Japan in the map. In the case of geo locations I just assume it's a traveling Japanese person.

For languages that the location widely varies it's hard
Perhaps County location? & just assume...

Sure, my primary objective is to find out how many of the google visitors are google.com vs google.co.th. Why? Just because SERPs vary quite markedly between the two, so I want to know what to optimize for. My guess is 90% plus of my visitors will be google.co.th rather than google.com but as I keep being told ... don't presume, test!

[mdw]

Lee you're doing a lot of extra work to get what's already being identified and stored in your logfiles. Write a little script to count lines in server logfile with google.co.th and subtract from total "google" hits. Or store it yourself with a script to save the http referer value.

[domainguru]

Originally Posted by mdw

Lee you're doing a lot of extra work to get what's already being identified and stored in your logfiles. Write a little script to count lines in server logfile with google.co.th and subtract from total "google" hits. Or store it yourself with a script to save the http referer value.

"a lot of extra work" was a 5 minute search, 2 mins to convert the search list to thai versions of google / yahoo, and 5 mins for the webmaster to upload the file and add a line of jscript to our site. So that's about 12 mins in total.

What it does going forward is mean I never have to hassle the webmaster for access to the log files, or scripts, and all the results (including trending, conversion rates and everything else that GA offers) are available as part of the GA interface online.

Nothing against log files, there are things you can only do with raw log files, but where a "higher level" solution is available, I am happy to go with that.