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
-
Analytics - Video Tracking
Hello, As i've ended up confusing myself, I thought I would ask the moz community whether i'm on the correct track! I'm wanting full GA tracking on individual videos from our destination URL. In short I need the name of each video to have specific tracking. Example;
Reporting & Analytics | | Whittie
Video 1 (Apples)
Video 2 (Oranges)
Video 3 (Pears) We need to be able to see the amount of plays per session, per video. As well as any extras if possible, such as;
Watched 25%, watched 50%, watched 75%, video complete, video paused. If the following script is used; https://github.com/sanderheilbron/vimeo.ga.js As well as using the Google URL builder (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en-GB) , what would be the best way to set each video to see the statistics within Google Analytics, so I can see how many plays the 'Apples' video has had. I think it is the ordering of the 'event, campaign, label etc' which has confused me. Many Thanks for any replies in advance, I appreciate it.0 -
What is this GA URL I keep seeing?
According to google analytics, most of my traffic goes to two URLs: "/site/kempruge" and "/" now, I'm pretty sure both of these are taking people to my homepage, but I do not understand the "/site/kempruge' one at all. When I type www.kempruge.com/site/kemprure it 404's, so I'm not sure what URL it even is? Also, I'm wondering if this url is hurting my website in some way? I attached the screenshots, but they didn't load properly. I'll try to add another one in the replies. Thanks! Ruben [
Reporting & Analytics | | KempRugeLawGroup](<a href=)" target="_blank">a>
0 -
Using Filters On Google Analytics
Hi Guys, I am In need of some technical help with regards to Google analytics. One of my clients has a site providing HR Software on SaaS basis. The users login via the site for the various HR Tools. Obviously this is skewing the analytics data and showing 10,000+ extra visitors that actually don't exist. Now I understand i can add filters and exclude certain pages for instance the login page, however, some users will visit the home page then click login. How can I exclude them just to show new visitors to the site rather than users that are just trying to login. Hope this makes sense Neil
Reporting & Analytics | | nezona0 -
Why is GG analytics showing so much (not provided)?
is there a better analytics tool (preferably free) that will show the actual keywords that drive traffic to a website or are we doomed to deal with (not provided) as a result of the Big G's retarded privacy policy? - seems they cant make up their minds as to whether they are going to take care of site owners or advertisers - but they should really take a stand and stop putting out half-ass results if anyone has any helpful ideas that may ease my pain i would be forever in your debt.
Reporting & Analytics | | Ezpro90 -
Google Analytics and backlinking
Let say I have my main site and my secondary site that is optimized for a slightly different set of keywords (nonetheless still relevant to my main site). I have several links from a secondary site to my main site. Secondary site is on a different C-block. Do you ladies and gentlemen think that if I put both websites under the same google analytics account, Google is going to penalize me or remove some of the juice that is flowing from secondary site to the main site because it would detect through GA that both sites belong to the same entity?
Reporting & Analytics | | SirMax0 -
Google Analytics - my continuing adventures
Hello I'd appreciate views of the various metrics I'm struggling with in GA: I've run 2 different reports that provide 2 different outputs. 1. In Standard Reporting you can report in Traffic Sources on Organic Search by Keyword, which returns the number of Visits. 2. In Custom Reporting you can define the Keyword dimension and the Organic Searches metric, which returns the number of Organic Searches. This returns 2 different numbers. For example, over the last month for a given term report 1 returns 77,306 visits whilst report 2 returns 52,589 organic searches. I have found some definitions: "Visits represent the number of individual sessions initiated by all the visitors to your site." "Organic Searches: number of organic searches that happened within a session. This metric is search engine agnostic." My understanding of these definitions is that report 2 should return a larger value than report 1 rather than what is happening (i.e. report 1 returns a greater value than report 2). Does anyone have a greater understanding of what these mean and relate to? Does anyone have any views on which metric is more useful? Thanks Neil
Reporting & Analytics | | mccormackmorrison0 -
How to compare Goals in Analytics
I setup LivePerson web chat on my site. In doing so I integrated it with Google Analytics as a conversion goal so I can track the visitors that engaged in chat. I want to see the affect these chats have on my other conversion goal, a completed lead. How do I figure out the conversion % of new leads for people who have enaged in web chat vs. those who haven't?
Reporting & Analytics | | TheDude0 -
Phantom urls causing 404
I have a very strange problem. When I run SEOmoz diagnostics on my site, it reveals urls that I never created. It seems to combine two slugs into a new url. For example, I have created the pages http://www.naplesrealestatestars.com/abaco-bay-condos-naples/ and http://www.naplesrealestatestars.com/beachwalk-naples-florida/ and now the url http://www.naplesrealestatestars.com/abaco-bay-condos-naples/beachwalk-naples-florida/ exists in addition to the two I created. There are over 100 of these phantom urls and they all show a 404 error when clicked on or crawled by SEOmoz. Any body know how to correct this?
Reporting & Analytics | | DanBoyle760