URL Structure and Analytics Reporting
-
Since there are no dumb questions, here's mine:
Our url structure currently displays the date followed by the post title. However, our news website has many categories like world, sports, entertainment etc. Now, when tracking in GA we get to see how many hits a specific page is getting (like entertainment) but since the category is not defined in the URL GA does not add the detail story views to the category page views. To illustrate further, a story from the entertainment section maybe displayed on the Home page and a reader may click on that story and read it without going to the entertainment page. This however, does not reflect in the analytics for that specific page(in this example, the entertainment page).
My question is, should we ammend the url structure to include the categories, if so, would the editor have to do that while composing the post or is there some other way. We are using WP. Or should I create some filters or something on GA.
Thanks!
-
Can you suggest how I would be able to do that by creating filters in GA without having to alter my url structure?
-
But you see, sometimes, a story is published in a particular (lets say sports) category and then displayed on various pages such as the home page, entertainment, latest news etc. Should that have any effect on the url or tracking?
-
I would recommend against using ".html" in your permalink structure and also categoryname can cause an issue, it's generally just "category".
It's usually a good idea to stick to one category, but if you do need multiple, you can easily adjust the permalink in 2 seconds right on the page after you click "Add New Page" or "Add New Post", it's above the post title, just click EDIT and set it to what you want.
-
You could do what you wanted by creating filters in GA.
However, for WP, your permalinks should be: /%category%/%postname%/ (custom structure)
Then, whenever you add a new post, you should just click on which category it goes into and it will automatically append the URL like this: www.yourdomain.com/CATEGORY/POST-TITLE/
You'll have super clean URLs, perfect categorization, and it'd be easier to report on in GA.
That help?
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
-
Identifying Bots in Google Analytics
Hi there, While you can now filter out bots and spiders in Google Analytics, I'm interested in how you identify a bots and spiders in the first place. For example, it used to be thought that Googlebot wouldn't appear in GA as it 'couldn't process Javascript' but now Google has announced new developments for its crawler with regards to interpreting javascript and CSS, this argument isn't as cut and dry. I'm not suggesting Googlebot appears in Google Analytics, but I am saying that you can't make the case that it won't appear only because it can't interpret JavaScript. So, I'm interested to see what metrics you use to identify a bot? For me, the mix of Users > Browser, Users > Operating System Version is still quite handy, but is it possible to identify individual bots and spiders within Google Analytics? And would Googlebot appear?
Reporting & Analytics | | ecommercebc0 -
How to better track subdomains in Google Analytics?
Hello Everybody! so I am setting up a website that will have several subdomains, based on the language of the site, for example: site.com; es.site.com; fr.site.com... How should I trace this is GA but having attention that I should be able to see visits as a whole and also if I want I should be able to see visits per subdomain, anything on specific I should do when creating the account? And after creating the account, how to separate that accordingly? 🙂 Thank you all!
Reporting & Analytics | | NelsonF0 -
Google Analytics - Still Seeing Keyword Data
Hi, I hope you can answer this question for me, obviously I'm aware of the changes regarding "not provided" in analytics however I am still getting keyword referral data in analytics (not much of course!) in the section Acquisition>Keyword>Organic Can anybody explain why I am still seeing organic keyword data even up until yesterday for the odd term? I cannot find an answer anywhere!!! Many thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | splendidapple1 -
Regex Filter To Exlude lower case urls
Buon Pormeriggio from Wetherby 22 degrees the summer continues! I need to set up a regex filter to knock out lowecase versions of http://www.sandersonweatherall.co.uk/Sales/ Thing is Analytics is returning this lowercase version which i want to regex filter out.So if Regex filter /Sales/$ returns what i eant how do i knock out urls beginning with lowe case s. Grazie,
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing
David0 -
Magento and Analytics - Unique purchases tracking
Hi guys, My ecommerce site is on Magento and in order to integrate it with Google Analytics, I enter my GA account number on the Account Number field in the backend. What surprises me is that some purchases are not tracked at all. So for the month of may GA shows X unique purchases when Magento shows x+5. Can this occur because the customer leaves the site before the confirmation page is shown? Thanks. Regards
Reporting & Analytics | | footd0 -
Analytics Showed Steady Growth Until Now?
Last 10 weeks have seen steady growth in visitors and pages viewed, yet this week it has dropped a bit from last week (virtually stagnant). Is our user base simply hitting a plateau, or is there another reason?
Reporting & Analytics | | wlefevre0 -
My first campaign identidied long URLs
Hello! 🙂 I've just created my first campaign, and the crawling proccess have detected posts with long URL (more than 70 characters). If I change it, i.e., alter the URL's, can some problem happens to my blog? Or do I have to disconsider this problem and just "work correctly" from now on? Thanks in advance for your help!
Reporting & Analytics | | Andarilho0 -
Best Practices For Google Analytics
Does anyone have any recommendations or resources for best practices in using Google Analytics. Specifically, as they relate to SEO and managing and monitoring several websites (i.e. registering/managing multiple accounts vs. master account, etc).
Reporting & Analytics | | Gyi0