php-ga: How to identify organic traffic?

Question

I'm doing all my Google Analytics server side, but GA is only tracking direct or referrals, and I don't know how to track organic. This is a pice of code that gets either direct or referral:

              //Campaign is used for the referrals
              //If not in session and there is a referrer, create campaign from referrer 
              //and add it to the tracker and to session.
               if (!isset($_SESSION['campaign'])) {
                        if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']) && 
                                strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], parse_url($this->config['url']['base'], PHP_URL_HOST)) === FALSE) {
                                $campaign = GoogleAnalytics\Campaign::createFromReferrer($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);
                                $this->tracker->setCampaign($campaign);
                                $_SESSION['campaign'] = serialize($campaign);
                        }
                } else {
                        //If already in session, add it to the tracker
                        $this->tracker->setCampaign(unserialize($_SESSION['campaign']));
                }

The above basically analyzes the referer; if from another source, creates a referral, if not it doesn't. Then it is stored in the session if there was a referral.

Now, how would I identify organic sources? I was thinking on making a table of possible organic sources, is this how Google does it? Something like:

protected $organic_sources = array('www.google.com', 'www.yahoo.com')

Then I would check the source in there before creating the campaign, if in array I would create it as an organic campaign. Is this an optimal solution? Any thoughts on how to identify organic traffic?

Answer 1

is this how Google does it

Basically yes - as far as GA is concerned an organic search visits is a referer from a known (by url) search engine plus a search parameter (to grab the search keyword) but without utm- or glcid-parameters (which would turn the referer into a campaign url). In client-side GA you can even add your own set of search engines, so I'd say that's the way it should work for the server side, too.

Answer 2

Yes, that's how Google does it. I created a small function to identify organic traffic. It goes like this:

        /*
         * Organic sources
         */
        protected $organic_sources = array('www.google' => array('q='),
                                           'daum.net/' => array('q='),
                                           'eniro.se/' => array('search_word=', 'hitta:'),
                                           'naver.com/' => array('query='),
                                           'yahoo.com/' => array('p='),
                                           'msn.com/' => array('q='),
                                           'bing.com/' => array('q='),
                                           'aol.com/' => array('query=', 'encquery='),
                                           'lycos.com/' => array('query='),
                                           'ask.com/' => array('q='),
                                           'altavista.com/' => array('q='),
                                           'search.netscape.com/' => array('query='),
                                           'cnn.com/SEARCH/' => array('query='),
                                           'about.com/' => array('terms='),
                                           'mamma.com/' => array('query='),
                                           'alltheweb.com/' => array('q='),
                                           'voila.fr/' => array('rdata='),
                                           'search.virgilio.it/' => array('qs='),
                                           'baidu.com/' => array('wd='),
                                           'alice.com/' => array('qs='),
                                           'yandex.com/' => array('text='),
                                           'najdi.org.mk/' => array('q='),
                                           'aol.com/' => array('q='),
                                           'mamma.com/' => array('query='),
                                           'seznam.cz/' => array('q='),
                                           'search.com/' => array('q='),
                                           'wp.pl/' => array('szukai='),
                                           'online.onetcenter.org/' => array('qt='),
                                           'szukacz.pl/' => array('q='),
                                           'yam.com/' => array('k='),
                                           'pchome.com/' => array('q='),
                                           'kvasir.no/' => array('q='),
                                           'sesam.no/' => array('q='),
                                           'ozu.es/' => array('q='),
                                           'terra.com/' => array('query='),
                                           'mynet.com/' => array('q='),
                                           'ekolay.net/' => array('q='),
                                           'rambler.ru/' => array('words=')
                                     );

Just put the above in your class, and add this function:

        /*
         * Check if source is organic
         * 
         * @param string $referrer The referrer page
         * 
         * @return true if organic, false if not
         */
        public function isTrafficOrganic($referrer) {
                //Go through the organic sources
                foreach($this->organic_sources as $searchEngine => $queries) {
                    //If referrer is part of the search engine...
                    if (strpos($referrer, $searchEngine) !== false) {
                            //Check if query is also there
                            foreach ($queries as $query) {
                                    if (strpos($referrer, $query) !== false) {
                                            //If there, traffic is organic
                                            return true;
                                    }
                            }
                    }
                }

                return false;
        }

You can then just call the function above by passing $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] as param. Hope it's useful for someone.