log file analysis
Reading the server's own request records to learn who fetched what, when, from which address, and what status they received. It is the only first-party evidence of crawler behaviour; everything else is inference from the outside.
What log file analysis does not show
Every forge rate and verification figure in a report is a statement about logs, whether or not the tool had them, so a rate computed without access to the logs is inferred and should be labelled so. Edge providers keep their own logs, which see requests the origin never receives.
Terms this definition uses
Related terms in Measurement and evidence
The vocabulary for saying how strongly something is known.
technographic data · read equivalence · content-change clock · self-claim ledger · agent task canary · revocation delta · signed verdict · hash-prefix lookup · k-anonymity · publication floor · data snapshot · evidence level · false positive · denominator note · percentile rank · population baseline · cohort asymmetry · self-audit invariant · unscored measurement · dated series · change receipt · regression · finding age · graded through a wall · self-audit · placeholder in record · fetcher disagreement · own-host loop · score version · row review · double-counted defect · cosmetic row · gated row · AI referral attribution · finding fingerprint · finding state · headroom · fix list · render gap · lab data · Lighthouse · RUM · LCP · CLS · INP · topicality · intent coverage · canary · citation rate · presence rate · answer stability
Questions about log file analysis
What is log file analysis?
Reading the server's own request records to learn who fetched what, when, from which address, and what status they received. It is the only first-party evidence of crawler behaviour; everything else is inference from the outside.
What does log file analysis not show or guarantee?
It is the only first-party evidence of crawler behaviour; everything else is inference from the outside. Every forge rate and verification figure in a report is a statement about logs, whether or not the tool had them, so a rate computed without access to the logs is inferred and should be labelled so. Edge providers keep their own logs, which see requests the origin never receives.
Which area of the glossary does log file analysis belong to?
Measurement and evidence: The vocabulary for saying how strongly something is known.
← gated row · AI referral attribution →
See it in the full glossary · 751 terms across 19 areas.