How to Find Server Logs for Any Website: A Complete Guide for All Hosting Setups

Why Monitoring Your Server Logs Is Essential for AI Search Monitoring

Analyzing your server logs for GEO is a foundational step in any successful Generative Engine Optimization strategy. Traditional analytics tools like Google Analytics miss most AI crawler activity - for example, when GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or PerplexityBot fetch your content to power answers in ChatGPT or other AI search engines. These visits happen at the server level, bypassing client-side tracking scripts entirely.

By monitoring your server logs, you gain full visibility into how AI systems interact with your site. This allows you to uncover new traffic sources, identify content opportunities, and track your presence across generative engines — all essential components of a strong GEO strategy.

How to Access Your Server Logs Across Different Hosting Setups

The location of your server logs depends on how your website is hosted. Whether you’re using a managed platform, shared hosting, your own VPS, cloud infrastructure, containers, or serverless solutions, each environment stores and exposes logs differently. Below is a breakdown of the most common hosting setups and where to find their access and error logs.

📚 Learn more:
Check out our detailed guide on how to monitor AI search engine activity through your server logs.

1. Managed WordPress Hosting

Most modern WordPress sites run on managed hosting platforms. These providers offer built-in dashboards where you can easily access both access logs and error logs without needing command-line skills. This makes them ideal for quickly checking AI crawler activity, troubleshooting PHP issues, or exporting logs for analysis.

WP Engine

• Navigate to WP Engine Dashboard → Sites → [Your Site] → Logs
• Available logs:
  • access.log — shows all HTTP requests (ideal for monitoring AI bots)
  • error.log — records PHP and server errors

Kinsta

• Open MyKinsta → Sites → [Site Name] → Logs
• Use the dropdown to switch between:
  • error.log
  • access.log
  • slow.log (useful for performance debugging)

SiteGround

• Go to Site Tools → Statistics → Access Log or Error Log
• You can view live logs or download them for deeper analysis.

💡 Tip: Managed hosts often rotate logs automatically. If you want to keep historical data, download them regularly.

2. Shared Hosting (cPanel)

Shared hosting remains one of the most common setups for small WordPress sites. Most providers use cPanel, which gives you access to Raw Access Logs, Error Logs, and the server’s file system through a graphical interface. This environment is straightforward to work with, though logs may be retained for a shorter period, so it’s a good idea to download them regularly if you want to monitor AI bots over time.

1. Log in to your cPanel dashboard.
2. Open:
   • Raw Access Logs → download Apache access logs.
   • Errors → see recent PHP and Apache errors.
3. Alternatively, use File Manager:
   • public_html/error_log — PHP errors
   • /logs/ — Apache access logs

⏳ Note: Some cPanel setups only keep logs for 24 hours by default.

3. Self-Hosted Servers (VPS / Bare Metal)

For teams running their own VPS or dedicated servers, you have full control over log files. Access and error logs are typically stored on the filesystem, for example under /var/log/apache2/ or /var/log/nginx/. This setup provides the most complete visibility into how your site is accessed, making it ideal for deep technical analysis, long-term storage, and custom log processing pipelines.

Apache (HTTPD)

• Access logs: /var/log/apache2/access.log (Debian/Ubuntu) or /var/log/httpd/access_log (CentOS/Red Hat)

Nginx

• Access logs: /var/log/nginx/access.log

4. Cloud Providers

Websites hosted on cloud infrastructure combine traditional server logging with managed logging services. For example, AWS EC2 instances expose logs just like any VPS, while services like CloudFront or Elastic Load Balancers push logs to S3 or CloudWatch. Google Cloud uses Cloud Logging (Stackdriver), and Azure integrates with Log Analytics and Monitor. This hybrid model allows teams to aggregate and analyze logs at scale, often across multiple services and layers.

AWS

• ELB (Elastic Load Balancer) and CloudFront logs → stored in S3 (if enabled)
• EC2 servers → check /var/log/nginx/ or /var/log/httpd/

Google Cloud (GCP)

• Available via Cloud Logging (Stackdriver) in the console

Azure

• Application Gateway and App Service logs → available in Azure Monitor / Log Analytics

5. Containers & Orchestration

For containerized deployments, log access works differently than on traditional servers. Instead of a single filesystem, logs are usually accessed through container tooling such as docker logs <container_id> or kubectl logs <pod_name> for Kubernetes. Logs can also be collected centrally using JSON log drivers or log forwarding solutions. This approach is common in modern application stacks, where multiple services run in parallel and logs need to be aggregated for visibility.

Docker

• Run: docker logs <container_id>
• Or check JSON logs at /var/lib/docker/containers/<container_id>/<container_id>-json.log

Kubernetes

• Run: kubectl logs <pod_name>

6 . Serverless & Edge Hosting Platforms

Websites deployed on serverless or edge platforms don’t provide raw server log files. Instead, these platforms offer observability dashboards and structured request logs through their UIs or APIs. For example, Vercel exposes request-level analytics and bot activity through its Observability features, while Cloudflare provides detailed bot traffic data and CSV exports through its Security dashboard. This model fits modern JAMstack and edge-native architectures, where you rely on platform-level analytics instead of server-level logging.

Vercel

• In your Vercel dashboard open Observability → Edge Requests → Bot Name, see Vercel: Bot activity and crawler insights now in Observability

Cloudflare

• In your Cloudflare dashboard open Security → Bots.
• Make sure Block AI bots is NOT on.
• Open the AI Audit for instant dashboards and CSV exports

Note: You may need to wait 24 hours for the data to appear.

💡 Tip: If you don’t see AI bots in Google Analytics, that’s normal — crawlers usually don’t execute JavaScript. Check your server logs to spot them.