Referer Cloud

Using ColdFusion I look for the referring web page that sent a viewer to my site. Then I split that traffic up into two categories: 1) Searches 2) Links. If a similar search term was seen before, I incriment it's weight. Same goes for domains of links. The result is a Referer cloud, very similar in look to a Tag Cloud:

This shows me what terms people are searching for in order to find me. Also lets me know who is linking to me (if the link was clicked on). I find it REALLY damn intersting and fun to watch. And since it's sorted by the last hit time descending, I get up to the instant information.

Look at how weighted 'php reference pdf' is... and I only have two pages on my site that mention php. It just goes to show you how popular php is, and the need for the decent PDF reference that I posted.

And notice how many of those search term referrals are from Google (mouse over the terms for info). It shows how dominant they really are.

Comparison

I did a little poking around online and found other search/referer clouds. But they didn't split the search terms out. And they counted www.domain.com as sepearate from domain.com, whereas my program knows to combine them as domain.com.

I've looked at the source code of other referer cloud programs... they are up in 300 lines of code, and use server log files (not real time). My program is only 150 lines of code and uses real time cgi variables and a MySQL database.

Others: Google only. Mine: All search engines.

Less code, more functionality, better performance. =)