Page Tracking using Custom URLs - is this viable?
-
Hi Moz community!
I’ll try to make this question as easy to understand as possible, but please excuse me if it isn’t clear.
Just joined a new team a few months ago and found out that on some of our most popular pages we use “custom URLs” to track page metrics within Google Analytics. NOTE: I say “custom URLs” because that is the best way for me to describe them.
As an example:
-
This page exists to our users: http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Ram_HD/2012/photos-interior/
-
But this is the URL we have coded on the page: cars-trucks/used-cars/reviews/2012-Ram-HD/photos-interior/ (within the custom variance script labeled as “var l_tracker=” )
-
It is this custom URL that we use within GA to look up metrics about this page.
-
This is just one example of many across our site setup to do the same thing
-
Here is a second example:
- Available page to user: http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/Cadillac_ATS/2015/
- Custom “var l_tracker=” /cars-trucks/2015-Cadillac-ATS/overview/
- NOTE: There is a small amount of fear that the above method was implemented years ago as a work-around to a poorly structured URL architecture. Not validated, but that is a question that arose.
Main Questions:
- Is the above implementation a normal and often used method to track pages in GA? (coming from an Omniture company before – this would not be how we handled page level tracking)
- Team members at my current company are divided on this method. Some believe this is not a proper implementation and are concerned that trying to hide these from Google will raise red flags (i.e. fake URLs in general = bad)
- I cannot find any reference to this method anywhere on the InterWebs
- If method is not normal: Any recommendations on a solution to address this?
Potential Problems?
- GA is currently cataloguing these tracking URLs in the Crawl Error report. Any concerns about this?
- The team wants to hide the URLs in the Robots.txt file, but some team members are concerned this may raise a red flag with Google and hurt us more than help us.
Thank you in advance for any insight and/or advice.
Chris
-
-
any 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
-
Why few pages have more than 100% bounce rate?
Hello All, For my ecommerce site approx more than 30k products I have. In Google Analytic approx daily for few products approx 10-15 products bounce rate show 300%, 200%, 150%, 140%, 125% how? and what is the solution? Product page daily change. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Johny123450 -
Tracking in Google Analytics
My site has just recently (or maybe not so recently...) had a great deal of https URL's indexed (I was really only able to find this out thanks to the recent update to the GWT Index Status). It appears that Googlebot picked up an ssl somewhere (I already know where) on my site and then proceeded to crawl and index pages with https rather than http. Since I understand the issue, it should be an easy fix. My question is, does Google Analytics support (track) both http AND https for one site, or would I need to set up two different tracking codes for http and https? I figured that I might as well grab some data from the https pages that are indexed before I try and remove them. I've done a little research on using Groupings/Groups but I figured I would reach out to the MOZ community to see if anyone else has worked with a similar issue. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | GalcoIndustrial0 -
How to track subfolders in GA?
Is it possible to get the visitor statistics for a subfolder (example.com/blog/) in Google Analytics? I already have GA tracking set-up like normal, and visitors do get logged, but to see data only for /blog/ I have to go to Content > Site Content > All pages and search for "/blog/". Should I create a new profile in Google Analytics? Or is there a better way to only see stats for a subfolder?
Reporting & Analytics | | Qon0 -
Google Analytics - Tracking a Goal from 1 Domain to Another
Hi there, been combing this page for some answers - https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingSite but can't seem to figure it out. Scenario - Site A Site B Currently have 2 different GA accounts set up on each. Is it possible to Track a Goal that happens on Site B, that comes from Site A - In Site A Reports? So say, Site A has a Newsletter, directing them to Site A but promoting Site B - i'd like to track the effectiveness of the newsletter. Site A is running a white label of Site B service. Thoughts? Cheers
Reporting & Analytics | | IsHot0 -
Tracking page visits
Hi guys After a lot of effort and late nights our website has gone online. http://www.health2000.co.nz/ In google Analytics am I able to see what pages individuals clicked on before they went to the cart? Ive had a look at GA 'Flow Visualsiton' but it seems a little confusing. Thanks for your help Pete
Reporting & Analytics | | dawsonski0 -
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 URL Builder Extension showing up as indexed pages.
Hello, I was reviewing my PRO member campaign report. I see that I am getting warnings for too long of URLs. However, these URLs are my website URL with the Google URL builder tracking code that I set up for my marketing campaings. Why are these being indexed? For example: www.website.com/?utm_source=Oct+Newsletter&utm_medium=e.... Thank you, Kristen
Reporting & Analytics | | KLFeichtner0 -
Analytics URL Tagging
For some reason I can't get Google Analytics to pick up my URL tags, am I doing something wrong? http://www.example.com/?utm_source=carscom&utm_campaign=3rdparty&utm_medium=referral
Reporting & Analytics | | kylesuss0