If I change the URL of a page, but the old page canonicalizes to the new, do I need to change my Analytics goals to get data?

[debi_zyx]

I changed the URLs of some pages recently (because the same thing that affects the internal anchor text also affects the URL - grr...) but considered it not a big deal because even if I looked at the source code of the old URL, the canonical tag was now pointing to the new one. The question is - if I had URL destination goals set up for those URLs in Google Anlaytics, do I now have to change them? Or does Google somehow know that anyone getting to the new URL is the equivalent of someone getting to the old URL because of the canonical tag that exists on the old URL source code? I still do see goal conversions for some of the old URLs even since I changed them - but it could be that people are still somehow finding the old URL somewhere - or that Google only reindexed it a week or so after I made the change. Any light to shed? Thanks in advance, Aviva B

[debi_zyx]

Thanks, Barry.  Great post.  I actually wrote to ask if he could update the post for the asynchronous code - we'll see.

The only issue with that is that I want the old and the new tracked as the same URL - for consistency.  Is that possible? Or would I just implement the code in the above post and then switch the URL in the goal?

Thanks.

[StalkerB]

You can change you analytics to look at your canonical page rather than the actual page... lemme go see...

Here, check this out - http://erikvold.com/blog/index.cfm/2009/4/23/relcanonical-and-google-analytics

Should sort it so you only get your new pages being tracked.