Products
Webtrends Analytics 9.x
Webtrends Analytics 8.x
Issue
A known search engine like google.com appears in the Referring Domains report but not in the Most Recent Search Engines report, or the number of visits displayed between the entries in both reports does not match.
Cause
The Most Recent Search Engines report and any report using search phrases and keywords is controlled by the list of search engines in the keywords.ini file. This file not only lists the known domains of search engines, but also the query parameter value they use to define a search keyword.
Example:
[Google Japan]
ID1=google.co.jp
KeywordIndicator1=q=
The KeywordIndicator shows the query parameter name used by the Search Engine to specify the search phrase used. Since search engines perform other activities in addition to searches, there may be referring traffic from a search engine that lacks the KeywordIndicator value. Without the KeywordIndicator, the search engine is treated as a referrer, and not a search engine.
Example of a referrer:
http://www.google.com/
Example of a search engine:
http://www.google.com/search?q=test
As a result, the visit traffic in Search Engines-related reports may not correlate with the visit traffic in the Referring Domains report.
Resolution
The keywords.ini file must occasionally be updated to maintain a current list of all search engines and the search phrase parameter names they use. This can be done using the Webtrends Browser and Keywords Updater, available from the following URL:
http://webtrends.cnc.net/LookupData/Webtrends-Configuration-Data-Updater.exe
If the list is not current, legitimate search traffic may be excluded from Search Phrase and Search Engine-related reports.