Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
"index.htm" for all url's in google analytics
-
I don't have this issue with other wordpress websites, only this one website, and I don't know what's causing the issue:
Google Analytics is adding an "index.htm" to every single page on the website. So it is tracking the pages, I see no errors - is it tracking the right page? When I click on the page link in a report, I naturally go to a "404 page not found" since the website address isn't "www.example.com/rewards/index.htm" - but instead the actual address would be:
"www.example.com/rewards/".I have navigated to View Settings in GA to insure "default page" is empty. Although adding anything else to this field does not effect the page url in analytics reports either.
Could it be htaccess file - or a plugin effecting the htaccess file?_Cindy
-
Hi _Cindy,
Please do update about the results, it might help us all learn something new.
Regards,
Vijay
-
Vijay,
Thank you for sending the link. I did read google's info about the default setting and thought adding index.htm(l) would actually remove it, as say permalinks feature does, not add it.
My default page setting is clear now and I'm just wondering how long it will take to get clean urls, since this does seem to be the issue.
I guess I could create a filter in GA, but lunametrics provides examples to add the index.htm(l) or .php and I would want to remove it, if possible, and my regex is not up to speed here.
But I do believe this default page is the issue and will get back to you.
thanks again! _Cindy
-
Hi Cindy,
I did some research and found a solution here, it looks like a settings issue in google analytics and not any plugin. Let me know if this works for you.
http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/12/17/cleaning-urls-google-analytics/
If it doesn't then, I would like to dig further.
Looking forward to your response.
Regards,
Vijay
-
I am still grappling with this "index.htm" issue - appended on all urls, and sometimes the correct url is listed along with it, ex:
/about-us and also /about-us/index.htm
I've manually added the UA code to my header file in wordpress. I removed the plugin that was previously configuring the GA account.
In GA for such Acquisition reports as 'Adwords|Final URLs' and 'Search Console|Landing Pages' and 'Social|Landing Pages' the urls are listed properly with NO index.htm.
But all urls listed within the Behavior reports, mostly that would be 'Site Content' all append the index.htm.
Could it be the Inbound Landing Page plugin, which I can not turn off for how long to see results? Is there something in the .htaccess file I should look for?
Additionally I am setting up a ghost spam filter in GA (through the hostname dimension in the Network report - article by Carlos Escalera in the Moz Blog) and I see the UA code for the property listed there - why would this be in that report? Related in any way?
Still in search mode and any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
site in question: dupontservicecenter.com
_Cindy
-
I have used google tag assistant - showing no issues.
I deleted the WordPress plugin (monster insights) and manually inserted GA code in header file.
Still I am getting "index.htm" appended to end of all urls in Google Analytics.
It doesn't seem to be effecting the metrics in GA, but still would like to know why this is happening on this one client site and not other client sites where I have those sites setup the same.
could it be another plugin?
Can I filter out the "index.htm" for the entire property so that the urls read correctly? If so, is this an acceptable solution?
in GA admin | view | view settings | default page I have inserted "index.htm" but this has no effect.
any help again would be greatly appreciated.
the site in question: dupontservicecenter
-
Hi _Cindy,
It seems to be resolved, at least at the collection level. It could be a filter in GA though.
If you ever see values in GA that look unusual, a great tool to debug GA data collection is the Google Chrome extensions, Google Tag Assistant.
Just click the extension icon and it will display what data is being sent to Google Analytics. In this case, just click "1 Pageview Request" and then click "URLs," then display the data as a table to see exactly what is being sent to Google Analytics.
Hope that helps this time and in the future.
-
Thank you Martijn. I was going to use filters to eliminate the "index.htm" - but I need to understand what's different here; my other sites are not experiencing this issue, without adding a filter in GA, so why then is this one site, and will it effect the metrics?
The only difference between this site setup is that the client was using, and wanted to continue using, Yoast Google Analytics... (now monster insights plugin) - so maybe that's it, my trackers?
here's the site dupontservicecenter.com
Very much appreciate your help.
_Cindy
-
Hi
Have you checked your filters in Google Analytics? Otherwise are you able to share the site so I can take a look by debugging your trackers?
M.
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
-
Tasks for Google Analytics training
Hi Mozzers, I'm delivering some Google Analytics (Fundamentals level) training, and trying to make it was fun and as interesting as possible... which is quite a challenge when it comes to GA. I was just wondering if you're aware of training tasks, or interactions, I could bring into this kind of training session? The group are particularly interested in user journeys and the effectiveness of content. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | A_Q0 -
Would updating Meta Titles affect Google analytics tracking?
Hi All, I need a little bit of help. We need to optimize our blog's articles Meta titles for SEO which all exceed 100 characters. I was told that if we change the titles, google analytics would split the tracking pages and count the data as 2 pages (old title and new title). Has any of you have this experience before and if so, is there a way to avoid google analytics counting this as two pages? Thanks in advance! Viviana http://analyteguru.com/ http://analyteguru.com/ http://analyteguru.com/
Reporting & Analytics | | mchoi0 -
% Change - Google analytics - how to calculate?
Hi All,
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnPalmer
I have two dates with two different numbers I want to calculate the "% Change" like google analytics, The numbers of June 2015 - 127,931 sessions
The numbers of June 2014 - 90914 sessions please tell me what is the %Change. Best. J0 -
Getting google impressions for a site not in the index...
Hi all Wondering if i could pick the brains of those wise than myself... my client has an https website with tons of pages indexed and all ranking well, however somehow they managed to also set their server up so that non https versions of the pages were getting indexed and thus we had the same page indexed twice in the engine but on slightly different urls (it uses a cms so all the internal links are relative too). The non https is mainly used as a dev testing environment. Upon seeing this we did a google remove request in WMT, and added noindex in the robots and that saw the index pages drop over night. See image 1. However, the site still appears to getting return for a couple of 100 searches a day! The main site gets about 25,000 impressions so it's way down but i'm puzzled as to how a site which has been blocked can appear for that many searches and if we are still liable for duplicate content issues. Any thoughts are most welcome. Sorry, I am unable to share the site name i'm afraid. Client is very strict on this. Thanks, Carl image1.png
Reporting & Analytics | | carl_daedricdigital0 -
Localhost:4444 Showing Up in Google Analytics
Hello All, Lately in my Google Analytics account I have noticed a referral source labelled: localhost:4444 The number of visits is really high from this source, but I have no idea (no clue!) what it actually means. Can anyone shed some light on what this is about? Should I be creating some sort of filter to screen out this as a referral source (assuming it is not legitimate)? Many thanks in advance. Cheers!
Reporting & Analytics | | Robert-B0 -
Comparing % Change, Google Analytics
Hey Mozzers, Is there a simple way to compare the "% Change" in traffic when comparing two separate time periods in a single Google Analytics report? When comparing data from two separate time periods, an exported CSV doesn't include the % Change (booo!), and there's no option to sort by % Change within the GA report, essentially forcing you to scroll through all the results to pinpoint the major movers and shakers. I'm not averse to using spreadsheets to sort this data, but I'm thinking that I'd likely need a macro to make this work, something like this. However, none of the macros on that page are working (possibly because they were designed for a previous version of Analytics). All suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dangaul0 -
Setting up Google Analytics default URL
If someone has set: the default url in Google Analytics to a non-www address (http://mysite.com) then placed the UA tracking script from that GA account within the CMS framework of the website... ... and then set the permanent 301 redirect in the htaccess file to redirect to the www address (http://www.mysite.com). How less accurrate will my GA analytics measurements be considering the default url within GA is non-www and the permanent 301 redirect in htacess is to the www-address? Anyone know how reliable GA reports are until the default url in GA analytics is changed to match what is the redirected url in htaccess file? _Cindy
Reporting & Analytics | | CeCeBar0 -
Google Analytics: how many visits from country Google domains?
Hello, I manage a site with visitors from many different countries. With Google Analytics, it is normal to see the number of visitors from each search engine. However, I would like to identify the number of visitors from each Google-search contry domain. How many visitors from Google.com? How many from Google.co.uk. And from Google.co.zm? And so on. Anybody knows if this is possible and if yes, how can it be done? Thank you in advance, Dario
Reporting & Analytics | | Darioz0