Website Logs needed for SEO?

[sweatnspice]

Why would an SEO company need to see a websites logs? I was approached by an SEO company that had in their small print "We require access to your website logs" (or something like that) - What would they be able to tell me from the logs that I can't already see?

[jocelyn]

[QUOTE=sweatnspice]What would they be able to tell me from the logs that I can't already see?[/QUOTE]
Logs say everything. Googlbots visits, hits and from who... It's everything that happend on your site.

[sweatnspice]

Right - I usually analyze my own logs, so I know what's coming and going. Why would they want them?

[bluesaga]

They can see what keywords you are currently optimised for, or at least faintly. e.t.c

[jocelyn]

[QUOTE=sweatnspice]Why would they want them?[/QUOTE]
To see your keys, yes and to see where you get trafic from. If you get no trafic at all from G, they will know that they have to work on that side... You may aim a full widgets and not realyse that you get trafic from widgets full.
Stuff like that I guess...

[sweatnspice]

Thanks - Those answers gave me more info then the company themselves.

[seo guy]

Are you saying they need to see your logs before you hire them? There is no reason for that at all.

When we are working with sites, access to the logs helps so that we can see what rankgs are coming up fastest and bringing the most traffic so that we can appropriate our efforts, also I like to do a before and after report so that you can show % increase in traffic etc but never need to see them before you sign on

[creative666]

We might ask for the logs of a potential client so we can run logs to show what our stats software can do. Log files are hugely important with all seo, they show sessions, page views, hits, keywords used, referrals, exit point etc...

[seo guy]

Craig I think the question is why would an SEO company need to see your logs before they can decide whether they want to work on your site, they really dont, but maybe I misunderstood

[Hexed]

While we're on the subject, does anyone know an offline (windows based) web log analyzer that will analyze raw Apache web logs in a well presented manor?

I just ran across SurfStats, which is damn detailed, but I don't feel that it is as well layed out as awstats (which I love).

Hexed

[creative666]

Maybe I mis-understood the question as well ;)

[sweatnspice]

Basically I was solicited by a company that said they needed the logs to begin SEO work on the site. (I'm not looking for an SEO company by anymeans) -- The way the email was worded led me to believe they needed to see the logs before starting.

[creative666]

Theres no need for a company to see the logs before they start working on your site. We only take them if they ask us to, or we offer to run the logs to show them the sort of reporting they could get if the became a client. We would only take them in order to clinch the deal.