My latest Moz essay for my log analytics startup Logz.io is live:
It’s ten o’clock. Do you know where your logs are? I’m introducing this guide with a pun on a common public-service announcement that has run on late-night TV news broadcasts in the United States because log analysis is something that is extremely newsworthy and important.
If your technical and on-page SEO is poor, then nothing else that you do will matter. Technical SEO is the key to helping search engines to crawl, parse, and index websites and thereby rank them appropriately long before any marketing work begins.
The important thing to remember: Your log files contain the only data that is 100% accurate in terms of how search engines are crawling your website. By helping Google to do its job, you will set the stage for your future SEO work and make your job easier. Log analysis is one facet of technical SEO, and correcting the problems found in your logs will help to lead to higher rankings, more traffic, and more conversions and sales.