We are trying to track every time a "No Matches found" result is returned for users using our site search. We set up a custom metric and placed the code within the search iframe but we are not seeing any data. Any ideas on why the data is not populating?
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We've been experiencing this problem with Google Analytics and our URL ad tracking query strings for about a year and a half now, spanning approximately 40 different URLs and query strings which all did this.
When we look up the pages in Google Analytics, a couple of problems are occurring:
The URL is split up and tracking as 2 different pages and the
analytics are split between them. (more on this in the example and
screenshot)
The new (2nd) page that is created within the analytics, has the ad
tracking query and the last item of the URL deleted and replaced with
the word "none".
If the URL ends with a word, it removes the word and
the tracking query.
If the URL ends with "index", it removes "index"
and the tracking query.
If the URL ends with a "/", it removes the /
and the tracking query.
and replaces them with "none"
Example:
This is the original URL and tracking query:
/ucm/lp/FY18/search/cas/index?from=UG-F18-Search
In Google analytics it gets divided into 2 pages:
/ucm/lp/FY18/search/cas/index?from=UG-F18-Search
and the new /ucm/lp/FY18/search/cas/none.
(Note how the query and the word "index" are removed and replaced with "none".)
The way the analytics get split up between the pages is interesting:
On the first URL, (the real page), the average time on page is 00:00:04, and for the second URL it's 00:01:03.
Entrances on the first = 7,888. Entrances on the second = 147
Exits on first = 26.43%. Exits on second = 87.15%
Seemingly what's happening is the user will land on the original page, /ucm/lp/FY18/search/cas/index?from=UG-F18-Search, and it starts to record the analytics, but, then something happens and it loads /ucm/lp/FY18/search/cas/none where the analytics will finish recording.
In addition, our 404 page gets a hit during this process too because /ucm/lp/FY18/search/cas/none isn't actually a real page. I don't have proof of the 404 issue right now, but that's what I'm told. I thought it was worth mentioning just it case it helps, but take it for what it is.
From our testing, we're pretty confident that the user has a seamless experience, and this is fully a "just-in-the-analytics" problem. The main reason this is a problem for us is because we can't accurately, or easily, tell which of our ads and venders are performing the best.
Please let me know if I can explain this better or provide more examples or screenshots. Thank you!
GA is splitting' the page because you're sending it 2 hits:
You can easily verify it in the Network tab of Chrome developer tools or by using the Tag Assistant browser extension.
I'd try commenting out the two remarketing tags and check the tracking, or migrating all these tags to Google Tag Manager.
We'd like to track behavior flow in our single page application using Google Analytics. We use the hash to route in the application, and we can track the URL within the app with virtual pageviews as described in Google's documentation. However, many of the URLs in the application contain ids, and are considered distinct URLs, despite representing the same page. Thus, we're unable to get accurate behavior flow information in Google Analytics for those pageviews.
For example,
http://example.com/#/dashboards/8a86204a-7b10-4bf5-961b-be16d209f2b0
and
http://example.com/#/dashboards/d8d6a9b5-b6f1-4159-bd6b-622e628f87b2
would be considered distinct pages, when really, we'd like to group these two urls together to determine how users use the dashboard view, rather than how users use a particular dashboard.
Is there a way to unify URLs like this so we can view metrics and behavior flow in aggregate (either in Google Analytics, or in the SPA)?
Completing the answer from #Eike. You can indeed use virtual pageviews to just set the url to '/#/dashboards' using the command
ga('set', 'page', '/#/dashboards'); and then send your pageview. But in my opinion keep the individuality in your data and use a custom dimension to achieve the aggregation you want. Meaning that you should define first a custom dimension that is named for example 'sitePageAggregate'. This dimension will take the value of your website's 'section' url for example 'dashboards' or 'search results' or anything else that might need the aggregation for the behavior flow. This can be done by code in before your pageview hit in each page like this
ga('set', 'dimensionN', 'dashboards');
where N is the custom dimension index. More info on how you can do this here. Now you will just go to your GA interface, Under Behavior -> Site Content -> All pages and just set the secondary dimension as 'sitePageAggregate'. In that way you are retrieving the results you want.
I am getting “not set” in keyword report section of Google analytics data. May I know any method to retrieve the search terms/ keywords from the not set data?
May I know what are the factors that can result in showing the “not set” result in Google analytics?
any help
You can't Unlock it:
(not set) is a placeholder name that Analytics uses when it hasn't received any information for the dimension you have selected. Occasionally, information related to a click can be lost even if auto-tagging is enabled. As a result, you may see some (not set) entries instead of keyword, ad-content, or campaign information that could not be collected.
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2820717?hl=en
Which report exactly are you having a problem with?
If you mean that you want to see what users are Searching the Google website on to come to your website. You are going to have a problem Google has stopped sending this information, they want to make things more secure for users. http://googleblog.blogspot.dk/2011/10/making-search-more-secure.html
I'm having some trouble with GA reports for one of my sites. Since the beginning of the month, GA is reporting URLs instead of keywords under Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic, in the "keyword" column.
What can be causing this, and how can I fix it?
--
Additional info:
Have not set up custom filters in this account.
I get mixed keywords and URLs in the same "keyword" column.
Having the same issue I scrutinized my server logs to get to the bottom of this. It seems that most organic searches with the domain as keyword do originate from google maps (and other google services) - when people click the link in the marker on maps the url is transmitted as the search term.
You need to select "Keyword" for the primary dimension. You've likely selected "Landing Page".
What you are observing is a normally possible scenario. In organic search report, under keywords column, GA will list the search keywords which showed your sites in the search engine result and subsequently led to an incoming traffic.
Let the website which your tracking using analytics be http://www.abc.com . Now assume someone searches , say in google, by giving a full url like http://www.xyz.com instead of just a word like xyz and your site link shows up among the search results. Now if this person clicks on your site link in the search results, then google analytics will log this with a traffic source as search>organic and keyword http://www.xyz.com , as used for the search. Now if the person searches using the keywords http://www.xyz.com + someword and your site appears in the search result and the person clicks on it , then in analytics you will see the keyword as http://www.xyz.com + someword which will be combination of url + word. This happens mostly if your site abc.com has some page which links to xyz.com or provides the full link and so your site is also indexed by search engines for searches with that web url.
In my app, there's a requirement to track search queries, which individuals to the app. The point here is to track specifically individuals/search_queries, i.e. I want to be able to say:
User 10.20.30.40 (IP is derived from client, ok) came to my website
from Google's search results page of 'hello world' query
Is that even possible?
I investigated the problem a bit. It turned out, that when the user on Google Search result page clicks a link and gets to the underlying page, the referer doesn't contain the search query. Say, for example, I entered a "Hello world" query...
I open google and enter a "Hello world" query;
I see a serach result page with a link to wikipedia on top; I follow it
I enter "document.referrer" in consonle to see:
http://www.google.com.ua/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CGkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fru.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHello%2C_world!&ei=HZ0fUIXTIordtAau54GwAQ&usg=AFQjCNHSAHv8NwVNdaxMvh0OhIxs6Zb1rQ&sig2=a8tEGTBNcFWOPykloXj_Xg
There's a &q= param with a blank value, preventing me to figure out the query the user entered.
I believe Google internally uses some of the query params (i.e. ved, ei, usg or sig2) from the URL above to keep track of query used to get to the site, and thus gatehr the statistics about which queries are used mostly to the get to the website. I couldn't find any information regarding how to use them.
In the meantime, Google Analytics would only gather a general statistics, not for individuals. Yet I noticed that there's an ability to use Custom Variables. Is it possible to use them somehow in order to track query the user came with? If so, wouldn't it be a violation of Google Analytics Terms Of Service?
So again: is there a way to know a search query one came to the site with?
This is not possible. Google erases the value of q parameter, so instead of
`?q=search+query`
one always observs.
`?q=`
Though, Google provides another way (the so called convinient one) to know which queries were used to come to your website: Google Analytics.
Also, it's impossible to track user_ip/search_query pair due to Google Analytics ToS.