Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How do shortened links show up in Google Analytics?
-
Hey, How do shortened links show up in GA? So if I tweet about something and use bitly, does twitter get the referral? I am thinking not. I have never seen bitly show up as a referrer, but we gets lots of clicks from those links. Hmmmm. Anyone?
E
-
Campaign tagging is always the failsafe method to essentially 'hardcode' the campaign attribution into your links. If the link is shared using some widget you have on your site and you have control over the code, just have these share links use campaign tagged URLs.
If somebody visits one of your page and just decides to copy and paste the URL from their browser address bar, then you'll get some directs or misc. web-based referrers. Not too many ways to combat that. You can create some JavaScript that 'could' catch some of the web-based referrers and force some campaign attribution, but it won't catch the non-browser based clicks so it's not a perfect solution anyway.
-
Next question.
-- Person shares a link from our site. Someone else sees it in their feed in tweedeck and clicks. That click through is recorded as a direct.
Anyway to combat that issue?
-
Well, we have not done a comprehensive job of using tracking parameters, so I am assuming that's part of the slippage. Also, we have share links on millions of pages that our visitors use. So folks clicking through from tweetdeck and the like from those links would show up as directs.
-
-
Thanks. We do use parameters, so we're covered there, but we are seeing an increasing number of directs in sources, which I assume is from tweedeck, et al. Thanks for the clarification!
-
bit.ly and many other link shortener services will perform a 301 redirect to the destination page and will pass the referrer (if available). If somebody clicks your bit.ly link from their twitter feed on the twitter.com web site, then twitter.com/referrer will be the source/medium. But if somebody clicks a bit.ly link from a non-browser interface (i.e. desktop Tweetdeck or Outlook Express email) then no referrer info is passed in the headers, resulting in a 'direct/(none)' for the source/medium since GA couldn't identify a specific source.
As lhutt mentioned, you can use GA campaign tagging to specify campaign information. You can use Google's URL Builder to create campaign tagged URLs for GA:
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578
-
I believe the source not bit.ly will show up as the referrer. IMHO, the best way to track shortened links back to your site is to use the Google Parameters. Not sure if bit.ly offers a way to do this easily (Hootsuite's shortner Owl.y does)
Even so, you can add the params yourself.
So if I tweet out about a blog post on my site, I'll put this kind of link into the shortner:
Then I am sure to be able to see my "campaign" info in a variety of ways inside of GA.
Hope that helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
UTM Links Showing Up as Separate Pages in Google Analytics
Hey everyone, I was just looking at landing pages in Google Analytics, and in addition to just the URL of the landing page, the UTM links are being listed as separate pages. Is this normal? I anticipated seeing the landing page URL and then using the secondary dimension to see source/medium. If this isn't normal, what would I check next?
Reporting & Analytics | | rachelmeyer0 -
Google Analytics reporting traffic for 404 pages
Hi guys, Unique issue with google analytics reporting for one of our sites. GA is reporting sessions for 404 pages (landing pages, organic traffic) e.g. for this page: http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php the page is currently a 404 page but GA (see screenshot) is reporting organic traffic (to the landing page). Does anyone know any reasons why this is happening? Cheers. http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php GK0zDzj.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | jayoliverwright2 -
Google Analytics SEO Queries Not Showing
Hi All, This might be a silly question, but for all the properties I monitor in Google Analytics, I'm now showing no data for SEO Queries under Acquisition for the past 6 days. Normally I would expect a few day delay in queries, but nothing for 6 days is somewhat peculiar especially as it was functioning fine prior to November 12th. Does anyone have insight into what might be going on? Thanks! URaNMa3
Reporting & Analytics | | amichaels0 -
Google Analytics: Different stats for date range vs single month?
I've been scratching my head, chin, and you name it over this one. I have an advanced segment to remove bot traffic from my data. When I look at the Audience Overview data for a single month (let's say Aug). I am shown a session count. No problems here, however If I set the date range to (January - August). The august monthly stats is incorrect, much lower. What this means is that, if I export a CSV report from Jan-Aug, the data is wrong compared to individually recording a month. Anyone faced this? I've asked the question over at the Google Analytics technical section as well, but no answer P.S I even used the 'control the number of sessions used to calculate this report' tool but no luck.
Reporting & Analytics | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Google Analytics - Next Page Path is the Same URL?
Hey Everyone, I have a Google analytics question. I'm looking through a client's site and when I look at the next page path, I get the same URL as the next path. For example, on the homepage, the next page path I get is the homepage again? This happens for all URL's, is this an implementation error? Is there a way to fix this? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | EvansHunt0 -
Google Analytics VS target="_blank" internal links: How much wrong is it?
I am working on an e-commerce website, and our CEO is sure that having target="_blank" in internal search result is boosting the conversion (not sure, but it's not an issue at the moment). The problem is that Google Analytics sees all URLs visited from search results as entrances/direct visits, hence the Booking Funnel Tracking does not work as it was supposed to. Is there any way to recover the tracking? Or we shall get the rid of target="_blank" attribute?
Reporting & Analytics | | apartmentGin0 -
Custom Variables to track Vimeo plays on website with Google Analytics?
Hello Everyone, I'm trying to track how many times a Vimeo video is played on my site via GA. Does any of you have any knowledge of how can this be achieved? I've read the documentation and came up with this: After the iframe embed i insert this: Of course the GA is loaded in the header. Does not work, at least i cant see anything in analytics. I have set up the segment as per the attached image. Thanks in advance! Alex E6XnO.png
Reporting & Analytics | | pwpaneuro0