Definition
Server log file analysis is an advanced SEO technique that involves examining web server log files (Apache, Nginx) to understand exactly how search engines crawl your site. Unlike Search Console data (sampled and delayed), logs show every Googlebot request in real time: crawled pages, visit frequency, response codes, response times, and exact user-agent. This analysis identifies crawl budget waste (unnecessary pages crawled), orphan pages (never crawled), invisible server errors, and crawl patterns. Popular tools include Screaming Frog Log Analyzer, OnCrawl, Botify, and custom solutions with ELK Stack.
Key Points
- Logs show Googlebot's actual behavior, not sampled data
- Identifies crawl budget waste on low-value pages
- Reveals orphan pages never crawled by search engines
Practical Examples
Orphan page discovery
Log analysis reveals that Googlebot never visits 40% of an e-commerce site's product pages. After adding internal links and including them in the sitemap, these pages begin to be crawled and indexed.
Crawl budget waste
Logs show Googlebot spends 60% of its time crawling filter and pagination pages with no SEO value. After blocking these URLs via robots.txt, crawling of important pages increases by 150%.
Frequently Asked Questions
Logs are typically in /var/log/apache2/access.log (Apache) or /var/log/nginx/access.log (Nginx). On shared hosting, they are often accessible via the control panel (cPanel, Plesk). Some hosts do not provide them, which is a selection criterion.
Screaming Frog Log Analyzer (free up to 1,000 lines) is a good starting point. OnCrawl and Botify are enterprise solutions. For custom analysis, ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) or Python scripts allow tailored analysis.
Go Further with LemmiLink
Discover how LemmiLink can help you put these SEO concepts into practice.
Last updated: 2026-02-07