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.
Will changing the property from http to https in Google Analytics affect main unfiltered view?
-
I set my client up with an unfiltered view in Google Analytics. This is the one with historical data going back for years, so I don't want to do anything that will affect this view. Recently, the website moved from HTTP to HTTPS. There's a setting for the property that will allow me to change the property name to https://EXAMPLE.com and change the default URL to https://EXAMPLE.com. Questions:
1. If I change the property name and the default URL, will this somehow affect my unfiltered view in a way that I'll lose historical data or data moving forward?
2. I have heard that changing the default URL to HTTPS will help me avoid a common problem others have experienced (where they lose the referrer in Google Analytics and a bunch of their sessions go to direct / other). Is this true?
-
Hi, I'm so glad i found this. I have a similar situation. We are changing from http to https.
Just to make sure i understand this correctly. We do not need to change anything in GA. But modifying the property name to https will reinforce what we did?
Thank you. Julie
-
I love the professional passion, Verónica and Paul!
VerĂłnica, Paul's response was more specific to my question about Google Analytics, but I appreciate you bringing up related issues with Google Search Console.
-
It clarifies, thanks! That's the info I needed. I appreciate it.
-
"The wrong name in the 'Property name' field or wrong setting in the http_ or https doesn't affect the data collection in your GA account." _I know - which is why I explained that changing the protocol there to HTTPS won't have any effect on the archive View either, which was the OP primary question.
"...verify all the properties and choose the preferred one" will not have any effect on "help[ing] me avoid a common problem others have experienced" as you state. That problem (Referral visits recorded as Direct in GA) is caused by the referral data being stripped out of the request when it travels from an HTTP site to an HTTPS site. There's nothing in GSC that can have any effect on this - it is entirely controlled by the server headers of the connection request.
There's nothing about Kevin's original question that has anything to do with or can be addressed in Search Console.
P.
-
Hi Paul,
The wrong name in the 'Property name' field or wrong setting in the http or https doesn't affect the data collection in your GA account. The data is collected via UA number in the GA tag for your website regardless of the domain your GA tag is on.
Assuming GA is linked to Google Search Console, where it is essential to verify all the properties and choose the preferred one for getting accurate data, plus this will "help me avoid a common problem others have experienced".
MÂŞ VerĂłnica
-
He's talking about the effect of updating the default URL in the Google Analytics Property Settings, Veronica - nothing to do with Google Search Console.
P.
-
Lemme try that again
1. Updating the protocol in your GA Property settings won't have any harmful effect on your archive view (or any other view).
2. Setting the Property address to HTTPS isn't what's going to determine if the incoming referral data is available - that's been determined before the visits actually arrive by the browser connection and server headers. If the visit to HTTP is coming from HTTPS, the referrer data was stripped out before the request was sent. GA just uses whatever it receives. (My point was, even if you don't set the protocol to HTTPS in your Profile, the referrer data will come through anyway. But getting your GA set to the correct HTTPS address reinforces this, so still a good idea.)
Hope that clarifies?
Paul
-
Hi, Paul. Sorry, I wasn't sure from your response...
1. I understand that "updating the protocol to HTTPS won't have any negative effect on your archival GA view." By this, I think you mean updating the actual website protocol (not making changes in Google Analytics.)
So, within Google Analytics, if I change the property name and the default URL to HTTPS, will this somehow affect my archival view of Google Analytics in a way that I'll lose past data or data moving forward?
2. I think you are saying that if I change the property name and the default URL to HTTPS within Google Analytics, I "should" be able to see the referrer properly and not lose the referrer and a bunch of their sessions to direct / other. Is this right?
-
The short answer, Kevin, is no, updating the protocol to HTTPS won't have any negative effect on your archival GA view.
Just having the visitor connection resolve at the HTTPS address "should" transmit the referrer info fully (it's the browser that determines this, not GA), but always good to back this up by having the GA property properly configured for the HTTPS update.
Little sidenote - since your site is now HTTPS, any referrals it sends to other non-HTTPS sites will get stripped. If it's important to you to have those other sites recognise you sent them traffic (this is important in some partnership/affiliate,/advertiser situations for example) you can add a Meta Referrer tag to your site so that it will send at least some of the referrer info even to a non-HTTPS site. You can select how much info gets passed based on your security sensitivities.
That what you were looking for?
Paul
-
Hi Kevin,
Assuming that you set up a 301 (permanent redirect) from the http to the https:
How to do it?:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6332964?Where?
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/What properties?:
http://example.com/
https://example.com/
http://www.example.com/
https://www.example.com/After all those were done:
Into this property only: https://example.com/ (Assuming that you prefer the https non www version)
verify the robot texts
upload a sitemap
fetch as google
You will see data starts to be shown and index within a few days.Forgot to mention the bad news on regard a migration to https, due to Google considers the https a new website, it will crawl all as "a new website".
That is great at first, though any failure from old times will appear with "red flags" because the 2017 algorithms will work. I mean broken links, 404s and so, that you didn´t know those were there, will be shown up.
That is why it is highly advisable to perform an SEO audit and fix up all, before a migration.
Although, in many years of SEO practice, only one client came before the migration.
You do NOT change the Analytics code, therefore it will continously showing old data and new data into the same view. Good luck!
MÂŞ VerĂłnica
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
-
Whatstuffwherebot user agent messing up Google Analytics
Starting yesterday, Aug 26, 2020, I noticed a new bot crawling our site with user agent whatstuffwherebot. Google Analytics is counting these hits as human traffic, completely throwing off my numbers - yesterday, Analytics reported nearly triple my typical number of visitors. As of now, Search Console only shows data through Aug 25 so I don't know if Search Console is also affected. Is anybody else seeing something similar? Does anybody know what the whatstuffwherebot bot is? I don't get any results when I search on Google or Bing. For what it's worth, the traffic is coming from Columbus, OH, running over Amazon AWS via 278 different IP addresses so far. Also, WordFence (my WordPress security plugin) correctly identifies these hits as bot traffic.
Reporting & Analytics | | ahirai0 -
Tracking 301 redirect traffic in Google Analytics
if I 301 redirect www.mywebsite.com to go to www.yourwebsite.com, how can I track the traffic in Google Analytics that is coming from mywebsite.com?? Â I don't think that's a referral traffic, is it?
Reporting & Analytics | | Armen-SEO0 -
Google Analytics Real Time Not Working! :(
Hello Everyone, Today, the real time feature in my google analytics stopped working. I am able to see that traffic is visiting my site, but not in real time. The real time count is usually at 0. But, there are some instances where real time will come back online, but there will be only 1 unique visitor.  At any given time, our website usually has 20 visitors or so..Has anyone encountered this issue? Where should i start looking for fixes? What are the possible problems? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | KarlMarxTheBear0 -
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 -
Why is Google Analytics showing index.php after every page URL?
Hi, My client's site has GA tracking code gathering correct data on the site, but the pages are listed in GA as having /index.php at the end of every URL, although this does not appear when you visit the site pages. Even if there is a redirect happening for site visitors, shouldn't GA be showing the pages as their redirect destination, i.e. the URL that visitors actually see? Could this discrepancy be adversely affecting my search performance? Example page:  http://freshstarttax.com/innocent-spouse/ shows up in GA as http://freshstarttax.com/innocent-spouse/index.php thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | JMagary0 -
Google Analytics - Keywords (not set) or ( not provided) WHY???
In Analytics, most of my visitors are landing on my home page, but when trying to see wich keywords they use, most of them are: (not set) or ( not provided) See screencast: http://screencast.com/t/AKwPW76qLVsN Can you tell why? What is going on? Is there a way to solve this? Thank you, BigBlaze
Reporting & Analytics | | BigBlaze2050 -
Google Analytics for multiple languages on multiple domains
Hi folks A quick question in regards to setting up Google Analytics for a website with multiple languages on multiple domains. The domains that needs to be tracked are: www.example.com -> English www.example.se -> Swedish www.example.dk -> Danish To my best knowledge this can be acheived in Google Analytids using 3 different setups: Different accounts Different properties Profiles What would you guys consider the best approach?
Reporting & Analytics | | Resultify
Pros and cons? Have a great day Fredrik0 -
Custom Variables to track Vimeo plays on website with Google Analytics?
Hello Everyone, I'm trying to track how many times a Vimeo video is played on my site via GA. Does any of you have any knowledge of how can this be achieved? I've read the documentation and came up with this: After the iframe embed i insert this: Of course the GA is loaded in the header. Does not work, at least i cant see anything in analytics. I have set up the segment as per the attached image. Thanks in advance! Alex E6XnO.png
Reporting & Analytics | | pwpaneuro0