ConverTastictm

Where are Your Conversions REALLY Coming From?

The Request Part of the Server-Log Entry

The request is what the browser asked your web server for. Most of the time they come in bunches. For example, when you click a link to go to a web page, your browser will ask for the page. It will also have to send further requests to fetch any images, scripts, etc. that might be on the page. So, when you go to the ConverTastic home page, the set of requests that get logged to our server might look like this:

"GET /convertastic/index.html HTTP/1.1"
"GET /scripts/header.js HTTP/1.1"
"GET /images/horiz-banner.gif HTTP/1.1"
"GET /scripts/nav2.js HTTP/1.1"
"GET /images/techsonotrans.gif HTTP/1.1"
"GET /scripts/nav3.js HTTP/1.1"
"GET /scripts/nav2.js HTTP/1.1"
"GET /scripts/nav3.js HTTP/1.1"
"GET /scripts/footer.js HTTP/1.1"
"GET /images/horiz-banner.gif HTTP/1.1"

Your browser asked for the page, and in the next second it asked for six scripts and three GIF files to finish constructing the page.

When researching a conversion, you can ignore the "GET" part and the "HTTP/1.1" part of the request. You can also ignore "plumbing" items like images and scripts. What you want to do is find the first page that your customer landed upon, and then look at the referrer.