Request log

The request log keeps your own record of every page view on your site: the page, the country, and any ad click, campaign or email link that brought the visitor. It’s how you can tie an ad click to the form a visitor sends later. A page view is one person opening one page. A visitor is the person: with the visitor-ID cookie on, the log links one visitor’s page views together. Who can do this: Admins and Owners.

Open it

• The settings: open the command palette (⌘K, or Ctrl+K on Windows) and choose Visitor data. The shortcut is T then Shift+V (press T, let go, then hold Shift and press V, while you’re not typing in a box; see Keyboard shortcuts). The settings are on the Request log card.
• The page views: in the command palette, choose Request Log. The shortcut is T then L.

The Request log card

• Record anonymous visitor page views: the main switch. It starts off. Turn it on to start recording. “Anonymous” here means visitors who aren’t signed in, not that nothing about them is kept. Each page view can include the visitor’s IP address, country, browser and the site they came from, as far as their cookie choice allows. See “Values you see as [withheld]” below.
• Set a first-party visitor-ID cookie: gives each visitor a random ID that only your site uses. It links one visitor’s page views and the forms they send, so you can follow an ad click through to a lead. It’s only set for visitors who allow analytics or marketing cookies.

Choose Save. Your changes work right away, with nothing to restart. What’s never recorded: anyone signed in to edit the site, known bots, and your site’s own files. Pages that aren’t found are recorded, so you can spot a broken ad link.

Advanced options

• Classify query parameters: sorts the extras in each web address into groups, so you can filter by them. Examples are ad click IDs (click), campaign tags (utm), email links (email) and everything else (other). The extras are kept either way. This setting only sorts them.
• Custom parameter rules: add your own sorting rules. Each rule has a Parameter name (or prefix), a Match (Exact name or Name prefix) and a Group. Type a new group name, such as “promo”, and it becomes a filter in the Request Log. Name prefix matches every name that starts with what you type: “promo” matches promo, promocode and promoweek.
• Ignore duplicate page views (2-second window): starts on. A visitor who loads the same page twice within 2 seconds is recorded once.
• Days to keep captured requests: older page views are deleted by themselves. It starts at 90 and can be 1 to 730. Page view records include IP addresses, which are personal data, so keep them no longer than you need.

Here’s how one web address breaks down: https://parkerspuppyplayland.example/contact-us?gclid=abc123&promo=spring.

• The page’s path is /contact-us. It shows in Path.
• Everything after the ? is the extras, called query parameters, joined by &. Each has a name and a value: gclid with the value abc123, and promo with the value spring.
• gclid is a Google Ads click ID, so it lands in the click group.
• promo lands in other, unless you add a rule that gives it a group of its own.

New and changed rules sort page views from then on. To sort the page views you already have, use Re-apply rules in the Request Log.

The Request Log

Switch between two views at the top:

• Requests: one row per page view, with Captured (when), Path, Params (badges per group), Visitor, Country and Status. Choose View → on a row to see everything about that page view.
• Query Params: one row per extra in a web address, with its Parameter, Value and Group. Type a name in Parameter, such as gclid, to list every Google Ads click.

Narrow either view with Group and the From and To dates. Choose Refresh to load the latest page views.

• Export CSV downloads what you’re looking at as a spreadsheet file.
• Re-apply rules (on the Query Params view) re-sorts everything already recorded with your current rules. It shows only while Classify query parameters is on.

Values you see as [withheld]

Visitors choose what they allow in your cookie banner, and the request log respects it. It records each page view at the level that visitor allowed:

• Allowed marketing cookies: everything is recorded, including ad click IDs.
• Allowed analytics cookies, not marketing: the page view is recorded in full, but ad click IDs show as [withheld].
• Allowed neither: ad click IDs show as [withheld], the IP address is shortened, and there’s no visitor ID. Browser details are left out, apart from the kind of device. For the site they came from, only its address is kept, not the exact page. The page, time, country and status are still recorded.

The name of the extra is kept, such as gclid, so you still see that the visitor came from an ad. Only the ID that could identify them is held back.

Values you see as [redacted]

Some web addresses carry passwords or security codes by mistake. Extras whose names look like one, such as password or token, are stored as [redacted]. The name is kept, so you can see one turned up, but the value never is. This works only for names the rules recognize. If your site uses a parameter of its own that can carry a password or security code, add a Custom parameter rule for it with the group sensitive. sensitive is the one group that changes what’s stored, not just how it’s sorted: a value in it is replaced with [redacted] before it’s saved. Then choose Re-apply rules to clean the page views already recorded.

Good to know

• Forms carry the visitor ID. With the visitor-ID cookie on, each form submission notes the visitor who sent it, so you can match it to their ad click. See Form submissions.
• Conversion tracking doesn’t need the log. It keeps its own record of where visitors came from, so you can turn the log off or shorten its days without losing conversions. See Conversion tracking.
• Other systems can read the log with an API key. See API keys and webhooks.
• Who can use it. Admins and Owners can open the Request Log, export it and re-apply rules. Each is its own permission in People & Roles: See the request log, Export the request log and Reclassify request-log entries. They show as not set up until recording is on.

Troubleshooting

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