Do custom tracking codes affect indexing?
-
Hello,
My company uses a tracking system that allows our employees to apply a short code snippet to the end of our URLs for marketing attribution. An example of such a code would be: https://www.schoolofmotion.com/?ref_id=moz-test
However, in Google Analytics we are seeing duplicates of our content, where the pages with the individual tracking codes are counted separately from the pages without. From a reporting perspective, this is annoying and definitely worth a fix. However, I'm curious if this problem is affecting our search potential as well. Could this tracking system be splitting traffic in Google's eyes?
From an SEO perspective, how should we approach this? Would canonical tags fix this duplication issue in Google Analytics? Is there something else that we should use?
Thanks in advance. The Moz community is incredible.
-
Glad I could be of help Caleb! & Thank you Dr Peat!
like Dr Peat said it’s tricky when filtering google analytics
Do you know everything you don’t want to have google show you?
Because I’m on my cell phone I have posted some links with examples you will want to do the same thing in search console/webmaster tools
Remove Query String from URLs In Google Analytics like Dr. Pete said need to create a new view in analytics
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009714?hl=en
- Click Admin, and navigate to the account and property to which you want to add the view.
- In the VIEW column, click the menu, then click Create a new view.
- Select Web Site
- Add website
- given a name like filtered
Google created a spreadsheet to automate the process.
Make a copy of this sheet and follow the instructions (clearly laid out on the first tab of the spreadsheet),
you'll be left with a list of all query parameters found in your data from the past N days. When leveraging the spreadsheet, it’s optimal to use a view without any filters on it.
CITE:
https://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/clean-up-query-parameters-google-analytics/
Open Google sheets and make a copy of the "Google Analytics Exclude URL Query Parameters Worksheet"
here:
https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2015/04/17/strip-query-parameters-google-analytics
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1010249?hl=en
you can also utilize Google's API for bigger sites https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/query-explorer/?csw=1
if you are a regex person this is helpful https://www.lunametrics.com/regex-book/
I hope this helps,
Tom
PbQ9ss7.png jcE3zVG.png n50GYbH.png RPLqssE.png n50GYbH.png RPLqssE.png
-
We'll definitely look into getting Canonical tags on the site. Thank you very much for the thoughtful response and examples.
Cheers!
-
I apologize for the brief reply I have rewritten this three times and somehow closed my page. Anyway, the important part is this is your issue you are not implementing canonical tags
see this image full-size you have no canonical's
To specify which URL that you want people to see in search results. You might prefer people reach your home page via https://www.schoolofmotion.com rather than. https://www.schoolofmotion.com/?ref_id=moz-test
Cite: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en
You are missing a canonical on your homepage and other pages as well this will lead to duplicate content when you post things like
https://www.schoolofmotion.com/?ref_id=moz-test
in order to prevent this query string from becoming a duplicate, you need a self-referencing canonical or a canonical reference from the query string to the correct URL https://www.schoolofmotion.com/?ref_id=moz-test
I've given you 5 URLs to reference and become more familiar with the subject
- https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization
- https://moz.com/blog/rel-canonical
- https://yoast.com/rel-canonical/
- https://yoast.com/duplicate-content/#url-parameter
- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en
**Reverse proxies allow you to set your headers this can be a very efficient way of adding a lot of canonical's if you're using a CMS like Drupal, Magento or WordPress I recommend **
Yoast WordPress SEO, Yoast Drupal SEO & Yoast Magento SEO
The reverse proxies are below
-
https://www.cloudflare.com/features-page-rules/must-use-page-rules/
-
https://wordpresscheat.com/fixing-cloudflare-wordpress-duplicate-content/
( I somehow closed my page 3 times while writing this message so I apologize if it is brief)
please let me know if there's any way I can be of assistance
Tom
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
-
ECommerce Tracking in Analytics - Should I use a plugin or do it manually?
Hi, I have a WordPress site (woocommerce integrated). I would like to know should I use a plugin to enable e-commerce tracking in Google Analytics or I should do it manually with GTM. Which is a better way? Will using a plugin to enable e-commerce tracking slow down my site? Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | Mr.Suren0 -
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 -
Procedure of ecommerce tracking installation and set-up using GTM
Hello Experts, I have an e-commerce website. Google Analytic configured in Google Tag manager. Now in google analytic I have "ON" the Enable Ecommerce. Now i have to do ecommerce tracking installation and set-up? So can you please let me know the procedure? Regards, Jackin
Reporting & Analytics | | jackinmathis10 -
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 -
Ecommerce tracking problem with multiple domains on 1 web property
We recently launched 13 product marketing sites based on a Wordpress Multisite setup. To track all 13 sites we decided to use one web property, so we can use the same tracking code for all domains. To track the sites seperately, we set up a profile for each product site with a hostname filter. This works well for most stats, but eCommerce tracking is where the problem starts. Per profile we obviously want to track the products purchases on that website only. What happens now is that all purchases from all product sites are tracked on all profiles. How can we change this? Should I alter the eCommerce tracking code or can I fix this with an additional filter per profile? Thanks for your help Mozzers! Regards, Pieter van Diggele
Reporting & Analytics | | RBO
Online Marketing Executive
Elsevier Opleidingen0 -
How to Track Google Local Places in Google Analytics?
I have read many articles on how to track google local places through google analytics. Each article I have read show a different way of setting up google analytics and using tags in google local places. Wondering if anyone as up to date information on this and what would be the best practice to track data from google local lisitngs in google analytics Thanks Arthur
Reporting & Analytics | | VivaArturo0 -
Switching from synchronous to asynchronous code in GA
Morning all, I'm looking to integrate GA with Webmasters tools but to do so I need to have the new asynchronous GA code implemented into my website. Now, I'm happy to just copy and paste the new code into my site footer, but will that any effect on the data that I've already tracked? Is there any reason why this is really not a good idea? Thanks for your help,
Reporting & Analytics | | theshortstack0 -
Google Analytics - Intelligence Custom Alerts
When you add an intelligence custom alert does it look at the history and backdate issues? I've added a few custom alerts, even basic ones like my homepage gets 5 views, create an alert. I either need to wait a day or something is going wrong. Cheers.
Reporting & Analytics | | Seaward-Group0