Mobile redirect causing traffic drop? Can I move analytics code to capture them as visitors before redirecting them?

[SamCUK]

Yesterday I implemented a mobile redirect as I don't have a mobile version of my site. As a result I've seen a drop in traffic which makes sense as my redirect script is at the top of the page. If I were to move the redirect script below the analytics code would that allow me to still track mobile users? Would this affect my bounce rate though?

[JaneCopland]

Yes, the "drop" in traffic (or drop in reported traffic) is because the analytics code doesn't have time to kick in before the redirect script takes over.

If you were to move the refresh script to the bottom of the code and the analytics to the top, the likelihood of reversing this goes up. We had a similar problem with a client site in that they had a very heavy piece of conversion optimisation software running at the top of the code and our tracking code at the bottom. Users clicking from search to the home page usually knew where they wanted to go quite quickly, and would click away before our tracking code had loaded. Client was desperate to know why our SEO traffic had gone through the floor. It had not. We had them reverse the analytics and CRO codes and our traffic "came back".

JS is executed in the order it's included in the code, so moving it should work. Should being the key word - I am not 100% on this.

I am not sure how to place a delay with JS so hopefully someone else can chime in on that one. Meta refreshes allow a short time delay - does anyone know what the correct way to do this for solely mobile traffic would be? Acknowledging that meta refreshes are not recommended for SEO, but they are a popular way of defining a short delay in redirecting a user.

[SamCUK]

The mobile site is not operated by me unfortunately.

[Er_Maqui]

Why you not add the analytics code to the mobile site too? The actual market of mobile phones runs JS without problems.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Uh, hard to say as you need to do it in the script you're including ;-). Can you send me the URL of the JS (or via PM, whatever you prefer)?

[SamCUK]

Thanks for your reply. How would I add a delay to this code?

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Hi Sam,

If you're doing the redirect with a JavaScript solution then the answer would be yes. Put you would need a delay of 1-2 seconds to make sure the GA tracking code is initialized.