Setting up Google Analytic Goals to a 3rd Party Site

[EricVallee34]

I recently received help on a question I asked on SEOmoz but need additional clarification.  I am trying to set up goals in Google Analytics for people who click on a “purchase botton” which sends them to PayPal.  I created a Thank You page and tried to get PayPal to redirect to it, however, our customers only get  to our site’s 404 page.

Here is what I’ve done so far:

• Went into my PayPal account and turned the “Auto Return” to ‘on’
• Under website payment preferences, I added the following URL http://www.teecycle.org/thank-youutm_nooverride1.  (I formatted the URL this way because the person who provided me with help recommended using the format ?UTM_nooverride=1.  However, our CMS system won’t allow “?” or “=”)

[seotoolshero103]

Yeah, you are right Moz is a great extension that helps in SEO. I'm also working on Mobile Accessories Wholesale UK with the help of Moz tool its really a very good experience and highly recommended.

[qasim122]

Good to hear! Great Solution,

NewsOnlineforyou.com 

[EricVallee34]

I will check.  I apprecate the follow up.

[Webdannmark]

I can't be sure why ? and = are not accepted by your hosting provider. I have had a look on Google for info, but not found any. In order to get campaign tracking working in Google Analytics you will have to get that changed.

I have just checked and it looks like http://www.teecycle.org/thank-you returns a 404 but http://www.teecycle.org/thank-youutm_nooverride1 returns a good looking Thank You page. Why is that? In the CMS system you use do you define the exact URL used for the order confirmation page?

[EricVallee34]

Hi Rune,

Thanks for your reply.  Why won't this http://www.teecycle.org/thank-youutm_nooverride1 at least bring the visitor back to my thank you page (and instead gives takes it to the 404error page)?

Also, I'm not familiar with the term hashtag in analytics.  What is that?

[Webdannmark]

You need to look at using the hashtag (#) for campaign tracking with Google Analytics.

Basically you replace the ? in the tracking url with a #. And to enable this nice way of tracking (also helps you avoid duplicate content issues) you just need to add this line to your Google Analytics tracking snippet:

_gaq.push(['_setAllowAnchor', true]); 

More information is available here: [http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gaJS/gaJSApiCampaignTracking.html#_gat.GA_Tracker_._setAllowAnchor](http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gaJS/gaJSApiCampaignTracking.html#_gat.GA_Tracker_._setAllowAnchor)