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.
Unsolved Capturing Source Dynamically for UTM Parameters
-
Does anyone have a tutorial on how to dynamically capture the referring source to be populated in UTM parameters for Google Analytics?
We want to syndicate content and be able to see all of the websites that provided referral traffic for this specific objective. We want to set a specific utm_medium and utm_campaign but have the utm_source be dynamic and capture the referring website.
If we set a permanent utm_source, it would appear the same for all incoming traffic.
Thanks in advance!
-
@peteboyd said in Capturing Source Dynamically for UTM Parameters:
Thanks in advance!
UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters are tags that you can add to the end of a URL in order to track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. These parameters are used by Google Analytics to help you understand how users are interacting with your website and where they are coming from.
There are five different UTM parameters that you can use:
utm_source: This parameter specifies the source of the traffic, such as "google" or "Facebook".
utm_medium: This parameter specifies the medium of the traffic, such as "cpc" (cost-per-click) or "social".
utm_campaign: This parameter specifies the name of the campaign, such as "spring_sale" or "promotion".
utm_term: This parameter specifies the term or keywords used in the campaign, such as "shoes" or "dress".
utm_content: This parameter specifies the content of the ad, such as the headline or the call-to-action.
To capture the source dynamically for UTM parameters, you can use JavaScript to get the value of the document. referrer property. This property returns the URL of the page that is linked to the current page. You can then use this value to set the utm_source parameter dynamically.
For example, you might use the following code to set the utm_source parameter based on the referring URL:
Copy code
var utmSource = '';if (document.referrer.indexOf('google') !== -1) {
utmSource = 'google';
} else if (document.referrer.indexOf('facebook') !== -1) {
utmSource = 'facebook';
}// Add the utm_source parameter to the URL
var url = 'http://www.example.com?utm_source=' + utmSource;
This code will set the utm_source parameter to "google" if the user came to the page from a Google search or to "Facebook" if the user came to the page from Facebook. If the user came to the page from another source, the utm_source parameter will be left empty.You can then use this modified URL in your marketing campaigns to track the effectiveness of your campaigns and understand where your traffic is coming from.
-
@peteboyd you can refer to this tutorial: https://www.growwithom.com/2020/06/16/track-dynamic-traffic-google-tag-manager/
Should meet your requirements perfectly - using GTM to replace a static value with the url in your UTM Source.
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
-
How to Boost Your WordPress Website Speed to 95+ (Without Premium Plugins)
I'm reaching out for some advice on improving my WordPress website's speed. I'm currently using a free theme for this fusion magazine and aiming for a score of 95+ on Google PageSpeed Insights. I'm aware that premium plugins can significantly enhance performance, but I'm hoping to achieve similar results using primarily free solutions and manual optimizations.
Technical SEO | | mohammadrehanseo0 -
Unsolved Why My site pages getting video index viewport issue?
Hello, I have been publishing a good number of blogs on my site Flooring Flow. Though, there's been an error of the video viewport on some of my articles. I have tried fixing it but the error is still showing in Google Search Console. Can anyone help me fix it out?
Technical SEO | | mitty270 -
Good to use disallow or noindex for these?
Hello everyone, I am reaching out to seek your expert advice on a few technical SEO aspects related to my website. I highly value your expertise in this field and would greatly appreciate your insights.
Technical SEO | | williamhuynh
Below are the specific areas I would like to discuss: a. Double and Triple filter pages: I have identified certain URLs on my website that have a canonical tag pointing to the main /quick-ship page. These URLs are as follows: https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black
https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black+fabric Considering the need to optimize my crawl budget, I would like to seek your advice on whether it would be advisable to disallow or noindex these pages. My understanding is that by disallowing or noindexing these URLs, search engines can avoid wasting resources on crawling and indexing duplicate or filtered content. I would greatly appreciate your guidance on this matter. b. Page URLs with parameters: I have noticed that some of my page URLs include parameters such as ?variant and ?limit. Although these URLs already have canonical tags in place, I would like to understand whether it is still recommended to disallow or noindex them to further conserve crawl budget. My understanding is that by doing so, search engines can prevent the unnecessary expenditure of resources on indexing redundant variations of the same content. I would be grateful for your expert opinion on this matter. Additionally, I would be delighted if you could provide any suggestions regarding internal linking strategies tailored to my website's structure and content. Any insights or recommendations you can offer would be highly valuable to me. Thank you in advance for your time and expertise in addressing these concerns. I genuinely appreciate your assistance. If you require any further information or clarification, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers!0 -
Unsolved Question about a Screaming Frog crawling issue
Hello, I have a very peculiar question about an issue I'm having when working on a website. It's a WordPress site and I'm using a generic plug in for title and meta updates. When I go to crawl the site through screaming frog, however, there seems to be a hard coded title tag that I can't find anywhere and the plug in updates don't get crawled. If anyone has any suggestions, thatd be great. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | KyleSennikoff0 -
Static or dynamic category pages for seo
Hi, I'm developing an accommodation site with a limited number of properties in 8 categories. I had been looking at making the properties blog posts and then using category function to show lists but its going to require a lot of customisation and I have seo concerns about the dynamic content as the category page is crucial. As I don't have a lot to add and listings will remain the same my latest thought was to create all as pages. However if I create a page with a list of 12 properties on a category page is there anyway of adding some sorting criteria to that page (would be 7 options - swimming pool, near beach, on site creche, budget, mid-range, luxury) Thanks for any tips Neil
Technical SEO | | neilhenderson0 -
Does it hurt to have a dynamic counter in your page title?
Currently we work with page titles which display the number of products we have as a counter. This number is highly volatile and can change every day, so that our page title changes all the time. We did this to improve user experience, meet expectations and improve click through rates. Question is whether this can hurt our rankings and if someone has experimented with this or has experience with this?
Technical SEO | | ElmarReizen0 -
Do I need to add canonical link tags to pages that I promote & track w/ UTM tags?
New to SEOmoz, loving it so far. I promote content on my site a lot and am diligent about using UTM tags to track conversions & attribute data properly. I was reading earlier about the use of link rel=canonical in the case of duplicate page content and can't find a conclusive answer whether or not I need to add the canonical tag to these pages. Do I need the canonical tag in this case? If so, can the canonical tag live in the HEAD section of the original / base page itself as well as any other URLs that call that content (that have UTM tags, etc)? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | askotzko1