Can google see your referring URL?

[test_dummy]

I think I've read it somewhere that google could see who is your referring URL. I think I read it on a forum but not really sure. Can anyone help me with this? I want to know if Google knows what sites are referring traffic to your site.

For example, Site A links to Site B ... when I go to Site A and click a link to Site B, is Google and other Search Engines able to track that type of activity - do they know I came from Site A?

Personally, without having Analytics installed, I don't know how the search engines would know where the link came from or that anyone ever click on a link or ever visited your site. Can they view the domain logs some how?

That brings me to my second question... does anyone think having Analytics installed can hurt your search engine position?

 

[ballgame]

Most websites in general can see where you immediately came from and where you go. Its simple html code that will track your referring url.

$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']

Google analytics justs exploits the ability. Tor can help eliminate this. Ive seen bots that will spoof your incoming url too.

Google Chrome browser will track your every tick and click.

 

[PrAviN7]

yes google can see.........

 

[test_dummy]

yes google can see.........

I know the server can see and I can check via a little code but how does Google or other search engines know who your website referrers are if your not using Analytics or using Chrome... what are they checking.. there has to be a log file on your server they can access if this is the case, right?

 

[test_dummy]

One of the reasons why I'm asking this question is because people have claimed to be able to increase page rank by pinging your URL with high PR referrals. I'm personally thinking it's not true and the search engines can't see your referring URLs UNLESS you have Analytics and in that case, only Google can see that info.

 

[N1CHOLAS]

Google can tell everything except the size of your penis these days.

 

[cruzino]

Site B can see that you came from Site A. However, once you leave google they don't have access to your server unless you installed analytics. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't see how my website host is going to give google access to my info without my permission.

 

[test_dummy]

Cruzino ... EXACTLY ... I've seen a lot of people that have said google knows who your referring URL's are but I don't see how that's possible, without analytics.

Google and any search engine can count links to your site but they don't know if anyone is using them... UNLESS you have analytics installed... which leads me to believe that Google Analytics might be being used to PENALIZE you!!!!

I'm theorizing this might be happening... maybe I'd be better off removing analytics.

I think it would be easy for google to say, those links aren't being used and therefore aren't relevant but without anayltics... they won't know. Unless someone can tell me how they're accessing my server log files!

 

[Nekojin]

If you're using Google Analytics, you have agreed to give Google access to that information and to use it for research purposes, to tune the algorithm, etc.

I have not seen Analytics hurt a site but one of my coworkers seems to think so and has moved almost entirely onto Pwick, which is a great alternative if you've got a good server to run it.

As for High PR traffic causing your ranking to increase, Google does not count traffic to a site, or the type of traffic to that site when it is determining your search engine ranking, if this was the case it would be much to easy to game the system using something like automated turk on amazon asking people to go to your site from another site.

 

[dividebyzero]

google tracks many things

 

[cruzino]

Google and any search engine can count links to your site but they don't know if anyone is using them... UNLESS you have analytics installed... which leads me to believe that Google Analytics might be being used to PENALIZE you!!!!

I'm theorizing this might be happening... maybe I'd be better off removing analytics.

Google says that they don't use analytics to affect your search ranking, but I choose to use other tracking software. Especially with their new privacy policy that integrates data from different services together. All that means to me is that they do pay attention to every market, and if they do want to take a piece of it they will. I won't install analytics on any of my sites. They have enough data already.