SearchSeal vs DIY log analysis
Your access logs already record every AI crawler request. With grep, GoAccess or a log pipeline, you can analyze them yourself.
Honest answer: SearchSeal’s crawler evidence is derived from ordinary access logs. You could build that module yourself. Browser analytics is collected separately.
DIY log analysis measures
- Every request to your site, including every AI crawler, in raw form
- Whatever you build on top: scripts, dashboards, alerts
- Full control, no third party involved
SearchSeal measures
- Pageviews, privacy-safe daily visitors and sessions, and acquisition sources
- Human referrals from AI products, goals, conversion rates and same-day attributed revenue
- Real requests from AI crawlers, including requested paths and HTTP outcomes
- Observed evidence with explicit limits: crawler unknown is never rendered as zero
Side by side
Bot identification
DIY log analysis
You maintain the user agent list as new crawlers appear
SearchSeal
Maintained crawler list, updated for you
Robots.txt verdicts
DIY log analysis
You cross-reference robots.txt by hand
SearchSeal
Allow, partial or block verdicts per crawler
History
DIY log analysis
As long as you keep and rotate your logs
SearchSeal
Kept for you, re-checkable
Programmatic access
DIY log analysis
grep, awk, or whatever you build
SearchSeal
REST API and MCP server
Cost of your time
DIY log analysis
Engineering time to build and maintain
SearchSeal
About 3 minutes to connect
When DIY log analysis fits
You enjoy this kind of work, you already run a log pipeline, or your compliance rules keep logs in-house. Genuinely fine choices.
When SearchSeal fits
You want website analytics plus the same crawler evidence without building or maintaining a log pipeline, with crawler data over MCP.
Your logs already hold the data. SearchSeal just makes it usable.
Related comparisons
Simple website analytics with AI visibility built in
See visitors, sources, goals, revenue, and AI referrals, plus separate crawler evidence.
Free under 1,000 pageviews a month on a single site. No credit card.