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I need some help finding where traffic is coming from...not regular analytics help

by bluedolphinc
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I have a question about finding out where a published article is getting it's traffic.

I am a new editor on a large site. This is not my own site so I do not have access to analytics.

I have a few articles that were written years ago by a former editor. The articles were all link lists to resources. And about 99% of the links no longer worked. I was surprised to see that the articles were still getting decent traffic to them. And were on page 1 of Google for the keyword phrase in the article title.

I checked using the Adwords tool from Google.com. The search volume listed for the title keyword phrase there is about 1/3 to 1/4 lower than the traffic these particular articles are getting.

So here is my first question: Is there a way to use the URL of the articles to find out everywhere that has listed them, other search engines and sites?

Second question. As I go forward and write more articles for my section, is there an Unobtrusive way to put a small analytics code in the HTML of each article so I can monitor where the traffic comes from?

Remember this is not my site. It is a big online site. So I have to be sure that any traffic code I use the reader will either not see or their attention will not be taken away from the article. I do not have access to the header or footer only the article body area. Which does allow HTML.

Thank you for any help! If I have not explained this well, please let me know


Bluedolphin Crow
#analytics #coming #finding #fromnot #regular #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author AlexR
    I don't think what you are proposing is possible. Analytics are stored on the host server and constantly updated. If you don't have full server access I can't see any beneficial way that you can track your own articles.

    The only possibility to get any sort of feedback if all you have to work with is your own article is to incorporate php script which would get the visiting IP and email it to you immediately.

    Whether knowing the IP of the reader is adequate for your needs, I don't know, but email is the only way that I can think of getting any feedback without having to retrieve it off the server to which you would need access.

    Alex
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    • Profile picture of the author bluedolphinc
      Hmm...thank you Alex. I don't really see any point in knowing the IP address. I want to know where these articles are all linked to so as I add to the site I can write to that audience.

      Anybody else have any ideas?
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  • Profile picture of the author KeithC
    Sorry this is kinda late but couldn't you just type in links:urlofarticle.com/articlename into Google search and it should bring up all the websites linking to your article. There will be some irrelevant results but it should give you an idea about the sites linking to it.
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    • Profile picture of the author bluedolphinc
      Thank you Keith,

      That will work great! I did not think of that : - ) - too busy I guess with other stuff. I really appreciate your reply. It is a huge help!

      Have an awesome day,

      Bluedolphin
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  • Profile picture of the author weblink29
    You can get a general idea of where the links are coming from by grabbing a section of text from the particular website and search for it with quotes at Google.com

    For example if I go to google right now and search for "I am a new editor on a large site. This is not my own site so I do not have access to analytics." (With the quotes) I find a link to this page and only this page.

    As for adding code to determine where the people are coming from when reading YOUR articles you could use statcounter code > statcounter.com if you have access to the actual html pages themselves that is. Statcounte code goes in the html code - it's invisible to the readers if you use the invisible code option.

    Hope this helps....
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    • Profile picture of the author bluedolphinc
      Another great help...thank you Weblink29 very much!

      I am going to try these later today.

      Have an awesome day as well,

      Bluedolphin
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  • Profile picture of the author jrim
    You could also use a script to check the referrer if you have access to the website.
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  • Profile picture of the author weblink29
    Sorry. If you want to determine incoming links to a particular page place the url of the page into google with quotes - not the text.

    If I want to know what websites link to my page:
    computerglassesdirect.com/computervision.html

    I can go to google and search for the url "computerglassesdirect.com/computervision.html" with quotes and it will show a list of websites that link to that particular page.

    The trick about searching for the text is to find other websites that are using your text on their website.
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