Is anyone out there looking through your web site's server logs to check out the click-thru behavior of people who are sent to your site by the content targeted version of Google AdWords? (Not all people have their AdWords sent out to AdSense-running sites---you have to turn that option on.)

I have been looking at my logs, and I've seen a couple of odd things. One may be related to my use of a htaccess 301 server redirect. I use it because it allows me to efficiently control (and count) the traffic coming in from my AdWords campaign and send it to the desired page. Below are two lines from a recent server log. I know they will look
like a mess in the message window---sorry.
Line 1 is the person clicking on my AdWords ad as seen in a Google AdSense display on
www.gotlaughs.com, which sends them to my redirect link.
Line 2 is my server redirecting them to the desired page.

I'm no server-log guru, so maybe someone can tell me why the syndicated AdWords URL shows up as the referrer again in the second line. More importantly---from reviewing Googles accounting, IT SEEMS THAT GOOGLE IS COUNTING THE REDUNDANT CLICK!

So the question is: Is this something Google is messing up on, or a quirk of how I have the redirect set up, or something else?


==== Line 1 ===
12.110.196.27 - - [29/Oct/2003:04:58:50 -0600] "GET
/9001/adwordsjokes2003Q4.htm HTTP/1.0" 301 331
"http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-euniverse_1_120x6
00&random=1067424976387&adsafe=high&format=120x600 &output=html&url=http%3A//
www.gotlaughs.com/funpages/bin2.cfm"
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT; YComp 5.0.0.0)"

=== Line 2 ===
12.110.196.27 - - [29/Oct/2003:04:58:50 -0600] "GET
/jokes-cartoons.htm HTTP/1.0" 200 34849
"http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-euniverse_1_120x6
00&random=1067424976387&adsafe=high&format=120x600 &output=html&url=http%3A//
www.gotlaughs.com/funpages/bin2.cfm"
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT; YComp 5.0.0.0)"

CAN SOMEONE HELP?
Donna

__________________
Site reviews welcome!!

http://www.GrinningPlanet.com
Helping the planet one joke at a time.

I'd contact Google and ask them directly about it, pronto. It may very well be that they charge you for two clicks, which isn't likely a result you want. Personally, I'd imagine they would frown on the use of the redirect simply because then the page listed as the ad page, isn't. That could cause Google problems in keeping out sites they don't want to promote, or misleading ads, etc.

Perhaps someone has a better idea of how to track the stats without using the 301 redirect?

Kathryn

__________________
Free E-book & Instructions in Using EFT & NLP for Weight Loss
OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com