Referral exclusion not working with GTM?
-
Hi, how are you?
I have my website with Google Tag Manager implemented. Google Analytics is one of the tags I have configured.The problem is that Referral exclusions aren't working for me. I excluded 3 domains, and I keep seeing them in my Referral Traffic report.
Any idea why this could be happening?Best wishes,
Ariel -
So good to hear!
-
Fixed it.
Seems that the IT guys left some old ga.js tracking codes that were activated in some transactions. When you have mixed tracking codes between analytics.js and ga.js this kind of pathological behaviors happen.
Thanks!
-
Not yet. Still trying different possible causes. Hopefully I'll have some results in the next few days.
-
Did this ever get resolved?
-
Nope, still trying to contact Google to fix this issue.
-
Did you figure this out?
-
Yeah, I've seen that article. The problem is that I don't have acceso to the other domain, and that what I did is exactly what it says in the last step, that's why I'm really lost!
I just contacted some people in Google to see if they can check what's going on.
-
I don't see anything wrong there ... I wonder if something like this would help you? I've never done it myself, but this article might be worth checking out: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2013/12/24/cross-domain-tracking-tag-manager/#sr=g&m=o&cp=or&ct=-tmc&st=(opu qspwjefe)&ts=1420936709
-
There's no way a user can come from those subdomains without passing from my site first. The path you give as an example is accurate.
Analytics is being tracked threw a tag in Google Tag Manager. You can see the configuration of the tag in http://imgur.com/Pqi3Gt5. Can you find anything wrong?
-
Ah, that makes more sense. Is there any way that traffic could be coming from those domains without having gone to your site first? Can you give me an instance of a path a user might take?
Example: User goes to product page on shop.domain.com, checks out, is referred to na.otherdomain.com, and comes back to shop.domain.com.
I am trying to see if there is another issue in the path of the user.
Also, can you share the tag you are using on your site for GA?
-
Yes, but those subdomains aren't from my website, they are from the website of payment gateway from where my visits return to my website after paying.
-
In your attachments, the screen grabs referenced two subdomains, one starting with eu and one with na.
-
I'm sorry, what subdomains are you talking about?
-
Are these subdomains on the same tracking code as the root domain?
I can't find a live instance of pages on these subdomains, can you give us examples of the tracking code on one page of each subdomain and the main domain (the one being tracked)?
-
Any ideas why this isn't working?
-
Yes, that's what I did, please check the tho images I attached, one of them (http://imgur.com/IrzKXiY) is a screenshot of the Referral Exclusion in the admin section.
-
With the new version of Google Analytics and GTM, you no longer code referral exclusions into the ga.js, instead you should be excluding them in the admin section.
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/upgrade/reference/gtm
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
-
Should I use sessions or unique visitors to work out my ecommerce conversion rate?
Hi all First question here but I've been lingering in the shadows for a while. As part of my companies digital marketing plan for the next financial year we are looking at benchmarking against certain KPIs. At the moment I simply report our conversion rate as Google Analytics displays it. I was incorrectly under the impression that it was reported as unique visits / total orders but I've now realised it's sessions / total orders. At my company we have quite a few repeat purchasers. So, is it best that we stick to the sessions / total orders conversion rate? My understanding is multiple sessions from the same visitor would all count towards this conversion rate and because we have repeat purchasers these wouldn't be captured under the unique visits / total orders method? It's almost as if every session we would have to consider that we have an opportunity to convert. The flip side of this is that on some of our higher margin products customers may visit multiple times before making a purchase. I should probably add that I'll be benchmarking data based on averages from the 1st April - 31st of March which is a financial year in the UK. The other KPI we will be benchmarking against is visitors. Should we change this to sessions if we will be benchmarking conversion rate using the sessions formula? This could help with continuity and could also help to reveal whether our planned content marketing efforts are engaging users. I hope this makes sense and thanks for reading and offering advice in advance. Joe
Reporting & Analytics | | joe-ainswoth1 -
Drop in google.com / referral trafic
Hi, On one of our sites (after the release of a new version, including redirections), we've seen a drop in referral trafic from google.fr (france). I know that this trafic usually comes from Google Images but it doesnt seem to be the case this time. The referal path is "/" and not "imgres" as it usually is when it comes from google images. The search trafic hasnt dropped tough... The site is a job listing site. We also saw a drop from indeed.com, I guess their crawler got lost in our new site... Any idea on the possible google site it could come from? Thank you,
Reporting & Analytics | | AdrienLargus0 -
Why doesn't Google seem to care about referral spam?
In researching the issue of referral spam, there is no shortage if info, both on MOZ and beyond. But, neither the Google Analytics Blog or Help Forums seem to mention the issue at all. I'd think it is something that they would want to get rid of, yet it seems like they don't even acknowledge that it exists. Anyone have insights into this? Am I missing something, or is Google strangely silent on an issue that is becoming more and more annoying for anyone trying to use GA data?
Reporting & Analytics | | irapasternack1 -
Potential Security Issues Installing Google Analytics GTM
Greetings MOZ Community!! My SEO firm plans has requested that Google Analytics GTM be installed on my website to better track goals and events. My developer will be responsible for installing the GTM script on my website and the SEO firm will actually configure GTM to track goals. Is anyone aware of GTM causing server errors/issues when installed? My developer claims that running GTM would create additional vulnerability to hacking. Is anyone aware of potential security risks from running Google Tag Manager? Once Google Tag Manager is installed, will it make the site more difficult for my developer to administer? Will there be increased risk of the code breaking? Overall, is GTM a big improvement over the existing version of Google Analytics? Is it worth the effort to install? My SEO firm is very much in favor of this upgrade. I would like to move forward provided there is no major downside. I look forward to feedback. Thanks, Alan
Reporting & Analytics | | Kingalan10 -
Referral Traffic vs. Campaign Traffic in Google Analytics
I have two sites: a blog and an ecommerce site. The blog funnels people to the ecommerce site. In Analytics I'm seeing declines in referral traffic from the blog to the ecommerce site. During the same time I'm seeing an increase in campaign traffic to the ecommerce site, with most campaign traffic coming from the blog. I believe the increase in campaign traffic is largely a result of simply having installed more tracking links. This leads me to believe that the declines I'm seeing in referral traffic is simply a result of the increase in campaign traffic. In other words, what was once counted and reported as being referral traffic is now being counted and reported as campaign traffic. So my question is this: In Google Analytics is campaign traffic ALSO reported as referral traffic, or is campaign traffic reported separately and not duplicated in referral traffic reports? I'll provide a concrete example to make this more clear in case it isn't: Say site X sends 1000 visits each month to site Y. Say 50 of those visits come from a single link on X. If that link is changed so that campaign Z data info added (via the Google URL Builder), would you expect to then see 950 referral visits each month from site X to site Y plus 50 campaign visits to site Y via new campaign Z, or would you continue to see 1000 referral visits plus the new 50 campaign visits? Many thanks in advance to anyone that can shed some light on this.
Reporting & Analytics | | aaronprimal0 -
Will 301 redirects (Same Domain) show as referral traffic in Analytics?
For an eCommerce site we have 301'd legacy product pages to new product pages. Is all that traffic going to show up as referral traffic from our own domain in Google Analytics? If so, is there any way to preserve original source/medium info or will all the source/medium info be our own domain since there is a 301 redirect?
Reporting & Analytics | | bozzie3111 -
Testing IP Exclusion Filters in Google Analytics
(I hope I haven't missed something simple 😉 I have add IP exclusion filters in Google Analytics. What I haven't been able to determine is how to test to see if it is working. I'd imagine there would be a dip in traffic but if a site is low volume it might not even register. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | AUDigitalMarketing0 -
Internal site referrers
Hi, So I have a segment of my website-let’s call it /examplea, I am trying to figure out how many visits I have to /examplea from all other areas of my website i.e. /exampleb, /examplec etc to /examplea so almost internal site refers to a particular segment of my website, Any thoughts on how to do this within Google analytics ? Marc
Reporting & Analytics | | NRMA0