I was looking at some site logs specifically trying to determine how many people came to a particular site through a Google search when a problem jumped to mind.

I have no idea what the ratio is of users who searched for a term, and those who searched for a term and made it to the site in question. The answer to that question has some value I think. Knowing the ratio could help you tweak your site so that the description that showed up in Google produced more click throughs (though this would likely change where your page showed up in the results, making this a moving target).

In any case, I was about write off the problem, thinking I could never know what Google’s stats were when a splendidly simple solution struck me:

Buy a text ad on Google for the keyword you’re tracking. Pay just enough so that the ad shows up always (if possible). Basically, pay Google to show you their stats.

I’m going to think about it for a while, then do some tests. Can you see any flaws?