The Search Logs tab is the most powerful diagnostic tool in your arsenal, acting as the “flight recorder” for your entire search ecosystem. While the platform is designed for automated, high-performance scaling, the logging system provides a direct window into the internal logic of every query, ad auction, and system event.
Whether you are fine-tuning your affiliate revenue or troubleshooting a rare API timeout, these logs offer absolute precision. However, because a busy engine can generate millions of data points, mastering when to use these logs, and when to keep them off, is key to maintaining a lean server.
1. The Ten Pillars of Granular Logging
The admin panel features ten distinct logging modules, allowing you to activate only the specific diagnostic data you need at any given time:
- Web Search Logging: Records the full lifecycle of a web query, including which indexing servers were hit and whether the result was served from the “Surgical Cache”.
- Image & Sound Search Logging: Tracks connectivity with the Openverse API, cache operations, and thumbnail localization status.
- Video Search Logging: Monitors video metadata fetches and captures any issues with YouTube or Douyin API handshakes.
- Product Search Logging (Beta): A critical tool for the multi-provider system, tracking how results from Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress are fetched and merged.
- News Search Logging: Logs the automated aggregation of your RSS feeds and any errors encountered during the update cycle.
- Ads Ad Logging: The most detailed commercial log available. It tracks outbound requests to your ad feed, raw XML/JSON responses, and the exact bid/CPC data used to determine which ads “win” the top spots.
- Admin Logging: Provides a security audit trail by recording all settings changes, tracking code updates, and administrative logins.
- Cron Logging: Records every scheduled task execution, including the exact duration, status, and output of your background maintenance jobs.
- Template Logging: Debugs frontend rendering issues by logging template selections, CSS loading events, and system-level display events.
2. Deep-Dive Diagnostics: The Play-by-Play
When you view an individual search log (such as for the query “sponge cake recipe”), the system provides a “Play-by-Play” breakdown that accounts for every millisecond of the process:
- Request Optimization: The log reveals exactly how your keywords are sanitized and how placeholders are replaced in your ad URLs before the call is even made.
- API Transparency: You can view the raw API responses (Steps 22–24), ensuring that the data being returned by your providers is valid and correctly formatted.
- Auction Logic: For monetization, the log details how ads are extracted, filtered, and sorted by bid value, giving you absolute proof of how your revenue is being generated.
- The Final Summary: Every report ends with a concise summary showing the total time elapsed, the number of results found, and whether the AI Summary was successfully generated or served from cache.
3. Strategic Maintenance & Performance
Logging is a surgical tool, not a permanent background process. Because millions of searches will eventually fill up even the largest server drives, the following management practices are recommended:
- Troubleshooting Only: Turn on specific logs only when you have a bug to squash or a provider to test. Once the issue is resolved, uncheck the logging toggle to preserve space.
- Monitoring Storage: The View Logs page displays the current Log Size (e.g., 45.75 KB) and the total number of entries, so you always know the storage impact.
- Instant Purging: Use the “Clear Log” button (e.g., Clear Web Search Log) to wipe existing data instantly once your analysis is complete, keeping your database fresh and fast.
By leveraging these granular logs, you gain the “absolute precise data” needed to diagnose and fix any platform issue in record time, ensuring your search engine remains a high-speed, high-reliability service for your users.