Google Analytics is recording a page called ".../form", but separately it is also reporting redirects to that page as "/form?/=test"
Under Site Content they are both listed separately.
In a case like this am I right to assume these are separate metrics that need to be added together to provide a truer picture of activity.
Or is it a case where ".../form" also includes all traffic from "/form?/=test"
EDIT: The URLs were due to redirected legacy traffic and since both were recording data in GA just trying to see about data collected to date.
It seems to me that absolute URLs are needed rather than relative.
Is there somewhere to point to "http://my.domain.com/form" instead of just "/form"?
Related
I want to use Firebase Analytics in my website in order to get some statistics for the visitors of each page (I don't want to track user journey in the site). I wanted to define multiple data streams (one for each url) in my google analytics dashboard, but then it warned me with the following message:
In most cases, a single web stream will meet your measurement needs. Using multiple web streams to measure different pages or sites in a single user’s journey may lead to inconsistent results.
in my case-where I want to see the statistics of my site based on its pages (urls)-should I define multiple data streams?
As the message says, it is not necessary to split based on the path in the web site.
You can in the Google Analytics console instead filter based on that path. This gives you the best of both worlds, as you can show stats for a specific path, but also for the site in its entirety.
I ended up using separate data streams in a similar situation where we had a multilingual site with a domain-per-language. The analytics dashboard lets you separate the data by domain, but the tools are bulky and don't seem available everywhere.
In short, creating a separate stream for data that is always going to be viewed separately can be a real convenience, even if it's not "the right way".
The main caveat from the data-streams documentation seems to be that you can miscount data. For instance, a user switching from the English site to the French site will be counted as a visitor on each rather than as a single visit. As long as you're aware of the data implications, you should be okay.
I am implementing cross domain tracking for a client. We will be using Universal Analytics with Google Tag Manager.
Let's say the client has three domains: example.com, example.de and example.se. We would like to have a master account that tracks everything, but we would also like to be able to drill down and see a single domains stats. Perhaps this already exists without any customization but I have been unable to find anything on how though.
What I can see there are two ways to go about:
Create a filter that automatically appends the domain to the tracked data. So instead of /about in my view, I would get example.com/about and example.se/about. But how would this work with event tracking? Is it possible to get a report the way the client want's?
Use custom variables and dimensions. This way I could set up a variable for Domain and send in before tracking the data. But will it be sufficient to get the reports wanted?
Appreciate any help.
Thank you,
Bjorn
Hostname ist already tracked, you can set it as second dimension to break down pageviews etc. by domain (works with events, too). However that is really cumbersome and most people follow the route you have outlined in Point 1. (Google suggest that themselves in their filter documentation) - however you'd still need hostname set as second dimension to break down by domain in the events report (or you create custom reports filtered by hostname for events for each domain).
Or you create segments based on hostname (since you can compare up to for segments that would allow you to compare the overall performance and domain performance).
Plus of course you can create additional views filtered by hostname and add the domain name only in the rollup-profile for all domains.
So there are several ways to do this somehow okay-ish, but nothing really better than the solutions you already came up with yourself.
I need help understanding and also instructions on how to properly use "_addIgnoredRef".
First I will explain what type of situation I am in. We have 2 subdomains (each subdomain has it's own webserver/application) that is being used as one website, meaning there are links going back and forth between these two subdomains. For the sake of just using an example, let's say we have "abc.website.com" and "123.website.com". We have links on abc.website.com that links to 123.website.com and vice versa, however they are treated as one website.
Second, we do not develop or change any google anyalytics code to the domain website.com. We only have access to the subdomains, abc.website.com and 123.website.com.
So the issue we are seeing is that Google Analytics is telling us that we have referrals coming from these two subdomains. I understand that it's because we have these two subdomains linking back and forth.
I do understand GA has a command that allows me to IGNORE the referrals by using _addIgnoredRef . However, am I safe to assume that I go to abc.website.com and append this to the GA code,
_gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', '123.website.com']);
and vice versa for 123.website.com?
Ultimately we want to not see referrals coming from 123.website.com and abc.website.com, but we don't mind seeing referrals coming from website.com or www.website.com.
If what I have assume is correct, then I must be missing something because that is what I have setup currently. Then my next question would be, do I have this correct?
_gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'website.com']);
Do I need the trailing period?
You can go on and on about how that having two subdomains as one website isn't a good idea for many reasons but this is what was provided to us when we first started. We will eventually merge them into one website, but for now let's just say it will take awhile and we need to "bandage the situation".
First off, adding _addIgnoreRef will only convert the referral into direct traffic. If this is desired, then yes, you would add:
_gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', '123.website.com']); //add to abc.website.com
and
_gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'abc.website.com']); //add to 123.website.com
The trailing period isn't necessary, just as long as you are consistent across the entire website. According to Google, the trailing period comes more into play when you have multiple layers of subdomains - https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/methods/gaJSApiDomainDirectory?csw=1#_gat.GA_Tracker_._setDomainName
I am attempting to create goal funnels in GA for dynamic asp.net based pages. The funnel currently looks as follows:
/
/market_home.aspx
/Category.aspx
/product.aspx
/Cart.aspx
/Checkout.aspx
/OrderReview.aspx
/Confirmation.aspx
The market_home, Category and product pages are dynamic and will contain various parameters ie:
/market_home.aspx?id=1
/Category.aspx?id=1
/product.aspx?id=1
I am using regular expression as my match setting (have tried head match as well). I still get two of my market home pages not being captured. It is only 2 out of 18.
I can't seem to figure out why it catches some, but not all of the traffic.
I also am not capturing incoming/outgoing traffic that is not at the start of the funnel. In other words, those visitors being captured in the funnel appear to complete the entire thing from start to finish. There are no visitors dropping out in the middle anywhere, which I can't believe.
The beginning of the URL will not change.
Any ideas what could be wrong?
I've got the same problem, i even asked about it couple days ago: Using regexp in Google Analytics Goal Funnel steps
I beleive the thing is that RegExp don't work properly in funnel steps. My solution for this is generating the same virtual pageview in every dynamically generated page and use it in the funnel. Goog practice is to create a separate profile for it and filter out those virtuals in the main to avoid data distortion.
I want to figure out how visitors are getting to my /error404 page. I want to see what URL they attempted to visit (e.g., http://mydomain.com/iloveyou) before they received the 404, so I can see what content my users think I have.
You can get by without touching your source files--as long as your error pages/templates are tagged, that's all you need, configuration-wise.
As an aside, our error page template all look about the same so to clearly allow a person viewing the GA data to distinguish the various error pages, we annotate them by passing in a descriptive string to _trackPageview(), e.g.,
pageTracker._trackPageview("404_removed_directory");
Needless to say, this annotation is just for GA, it isn't shown to the user.
So w/r/t viewing the information you are after--i.e., page paths in which one of your error pages is the terminus--you can use either the GA data browser or either of the two GA APIs.
Using the GA Data Export API
I would code my Request this way:
dimensions=ga:previousPagePath
metrics=ga:pageviews
filters=ga:nextPagePath%3D~SomeErrorPage.html
# or if your API client does not require URL encoding, then:
filters=ga:nextPagePath=~SomeErrorPage.html
If you haven't used the GA Data Export API, the Data Feed page shows a complete API Request that you can use as a template.
In addition, Google's Data Feed Query Explorer is a decent sandbox to interactively test the queries that comprise your Requests.
Using the GA data browser
From the main Dashboard, on the left-hand side panel, click Content, then click Overview underneath it. To the right, in the main window, you will see a heading under the Pageviews chart, called Navigation Analysis, this has two linked options under it, Navigation Summary and Entrance Paths. clicking the latter will reveal the view shown below. In the textbox, just enter the name of your error page to get the entrance path for that error page.
Finally, relying on your server access log for this information is less reliable for all of the usual reasons (caching, etc.), in addition, given your question is specific to GA, i assume you already use GA, so modifying your config file, and parsing the activity log, if you are not already doing so, is a lot of trouble, compared to getting a more accurate count of the same data through a channel (GA) you have already set up.
You don't need google analytics for this - just expand the logging of your webserver to log referer data for this specific page. With this information you can see where the majority of people are coming from.