Server Logs Are SEO's Most Underused Data
See exactly how Googlebot crawls your site. Which pages get crawled, when, how often. What's returning 5xx errors. Where crawl budget is wasted. This is ground truth, not estimates.
Screaming Frog Log Analyzer
From the makers of Screaming Frog spider. Import logs, filter by bot, analyze crawl patterns. Integrate with crawl data to compare crawled vs discovered URLs. Handles large log files well. One-time purchase, reasonable price, runs locally.
SEO-Focused Log Analyzers
Tools built specifically for SEO log analysis. Filter by bot, analyze crawl frequency, find problems.
Screaming Frog Log File Analyser
USE ITImport logs, filter by Googlebot, analyze crawl patterns over time. Combine with crawl data: see what's crawled vs what exists. Export insights. Runs locally, handles billions of log lines with patience.
Loggly
SITUATIONALCloud log management. Centralize logs from multiple sources for analysis. More general-purpose than SEO-specific log analyzers.
Matomo Log Analytics
SITUATIONALOpen-source analytics with log file import. Self-host for full data ownership. Privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics.
Botify Log Analyzer
SITUATIONALEnterprise log analysis as part of Botify's platform. Automated log ingestion, combines with crawl and analytics data. Continuous monitoring, not just one-time analysis. For large sites with dedicated SEO teams and enterprise budgets.
OnCrawl Log Analyzer
SITUATIONALLog analysis as part of OnCrawl's technical SEO platform. Automated ingestion, crawl budget analysis, orphan page detection. Good for mid-size to enterprise sites. Combines logs with crawl data and search console.
JetOctopus Log Analysis
SITUATIONALCloud-based log analysis integrated with their crawler. Automatic log parsing, bot behavior visualization, crawl budget insights. Good alternative to Botify/OnCrawl at lower price points. Growing feature set.
General Purpose Log Tools
Not SEO-specific, but powerful for anyone comfortable with log formats.
GoAccess
USE ITFast, open-source log analyzer. Real-time or batch processing. Terminal or HTML output. Handles massive log files efficiently. Filter by user agent to isolate Googlebot. Free and incredibly fast.
AWStats
SITUATIONALClassic log analyzer, been around forever. Still works, still useful. Shows robot activity, popular pages, errors. Often pre-installed on hosting. Not as fast as GoAccess but more detailed reports out of the box.
grep + awk + sort
USE IT
The OG log analysis toolkit. If you know the command line, you can answer any question.
grep "Googlebot" access.log | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn
Learn this. It's faster than any GUI for simple questions.
Enterprise Log Pipelines
For sites that need continuous log monitoring at scale.
Elasticsearch + Kibana (ELK)
SITUATIONALIndustry standard for log aggregation. Stream logs to Elasticsearch, visualize in Kibana. Build dashboards for Googlebot activity, crawl frequency, error rates. Requires infrastructure and setup, but massively powerful at scale.
Splunk
SITUATIONALEnterprise log management. If your company already uses Splunk for ops, ask for access to web server logs. Build SEO-specific dashboards. Not worth buying just for SEO, but leverage it if it exists.
Google Cloud Logging
SITUATIONALIf you're on GCP, use Cloud Logging. Export to BigQuery for analysis. Query Googlebot hits with SQL. Build Looker dashboards. The right choice if your infrastructure is already on Google Cloud.
What to Analyze
Which parts of your site get crawled most? Are important pages being neglected?
5xx errors visible only to Googlebot? Soft 404s? These won't show in your browser.
Is Googlebot hitting faceted navigation, parameter URLs, or other pages you'd rather not index?
Pages that get crawled but aren't in your sitemap or internal linking. How did Google find them?
Slow responses to Googlebot? This affects crawl rate and potentially rankings.
Why Most SEOs Don't Do Log Analysis
Getting access to server logs requires talking to DevOps. Parsing logs requires some technical skill. The tools aren't as pretty as keyword research UIs. So most SEOs skip it.
This is a competitive advantage for you.
Logs show you ground truth: what Googlebot actually does, not what you think it does. A site can look perfect in Screaming Frog but return 503s to Googlebot during peak hours. You'd never know without logs.
Minimum viable log analysis: Filter for Googlebot, check status codes, look at crawl frequency trends. Takes 30 minutes. Reveals problems that would take weeks to find otherwise.