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I strongly suspect that Google (and probably Bing) has some tracking parameters in place on visits that originate from a mobile app. If this is indeed the case, with some creative filtering in GA, it'd be pretty simple to pull out the numbers.
Edit: Just tested. Did a search from the Google App for iOS. I don't know what the URL behind that search was, but when clicking "open in safari", the URL was:
Plenty unique identifiers in there.
In calculating time on site, the last pageview does not factor into the equation. It is true, as Vahe said, that the session will end at 30 mins. But the last pageview never gets a time on page # and is not factored into the time on site #.
All time on site/page calculations depend on the next pageview (still within the same session). One odd example to consider: I click a link on a page. Open a new tab and surf elsewhere. I come back to that original tab and click onto the next page BEFORE 30 mins have elapsed (without starting a new session, otherwise). In that case, the original pageview has a very long time on page.
Mike
Chris,
One way or another, unfortunately, your data will have to end up in Excel for you to get everything you want. Custom reports are powerful, but I suspect getting it all together simply will be impossible.
So, the issue is now: the pain in the ass that is re-downloading tons of .csvs everytime.
Ultimately, you'd probably best just hiring a GA API expert to build out what you want.
But if you want to give it a go on your own, I think where you might get a lot of help is from an Analytics Excel plugin like Excellent Analytics.
It can be a bit cumbersome getting the data out that you want, BUT the real benefit is that once you do have the queries in place, you can click update and the new data will roll in (see about 3/4 of the way down on their how-to page: http://excellentanalytics.com/how-to/). I can imagine a scenario where you have a few queries that pull raw data, then some a bunch of references in your master table of data.
Also, they're not the only ones with a GA/Excel plugin.
Good Luck
Mike
Nope, the second _setDomainName line should be on both subdomains. That's all that's really required to enable proper subdomain tracking nowadays.
Optionally, you can add the _setIgnoredRef line just before the _trackPageview:
_gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'mydomain.com']);
I think Margarita is referring to tracking in Omniture, rather than Google Analytics.
Margarita, have you tried tagging your destination URLs with a campaign parameter that you've specified in Omniture as paid? This post might shed some light:http://blogs.omniture.com/2009/03/10/organic-vs-paid-search-detection/
Simon,
It doesn't sound like this is something you're going to get in one pretty view in Analytics. However, unless I'm understanding incorrectly, it should pretty simple to see it all in some fashion.
Have you tried navigating to the pages content->report, finding your ultimate goal page, clicking on it, then clicking the navigation summary tab at the top? From here you'll get a look at the previous pages. At that point, you can apply segments for the countries you'd like to see. With the new Analytics, you can even preview the segment before creating it, which might be a bit quicker.
Hope that helps.
Yeah. While that definitely seems odd, real time GA is still a beta product, and would not be surprised if the occasional oddity occurs.
Your situation is the one I'd be concerned about. Do let me know if your tech team is aware of any customization going on.
I've never heard any reports of Google censoring keywords (unless you count <not provided="">as censoring).</not>
I honestly have no idea what could be causing this. Do you have any customizations to your tracking code?
Lou, I agree that it is odd that your'e seeing simultaneous upticks in traffic from the different mediums, but I wouldn't say it's out of the realm of natural possibility. As for your original question, I think you've mostly figured it all out. But allow me to do my best to clarify: The GA snippet would never actually fire on the old URL in the case of an old URL 301 redirecting to a new URL. 301s DO preserve referral information. So an old link on example.com that links to your OLD url will track in GA as landing on the new URL with example.com as a referrer. There are a few instances where the referral information will be lost, most (all) of them are detailed in the previously linked thread here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google Analytics/thread?tid=51c7a2aa222f415e&hl=en Mike
Indeed, if you want to whitelist a list of Google IPs, we'd be talking about a TON of IPs. To my knowledge, there doesn't seem to be a public list anywhere.
I'm afraid there is no good answer for your question.
Your best bet might be experimenting with an self-hosted Analytics package like Urchin.
Ewan,
Very interesting indeed. Because this is a public question, I think it could end up being tremendously helpful if you'd post any further findings. I don't want to take up too much of your time, so no need for a novel.
I suppose it's possible that having malformed tracking parameters on the (organic) Google Product URLs (missing utm_campaign) could be breaking things on the paid side as well.
Mike
Let me ask one simple question before looking further:
When you're tagging your Google Product Feed URLs, are you including source, medium, AND campaign. In the original post, you only mention medium and source. Campaign is also required, and it may just be that not including campaign is causing the whole thing to get thrown out.
Secondly, AdWords product listing ads, as far as I know (and have seen), should ALWAYS report as paid, rather than organic. Assuming you've got auto-tagging set up (in the AdWords settings), I'm not sure how this could be taking place.
Let's start there and work from there.
This question was answered privately.
Dave,
There is a considerable amount of research being done by Moz and the Moz bloggers at the moment on this topic. A blog post is planned once the team reaches a conclusion. I would expect it within the next few days (if not tomorrow).
If the post doesn't answer your question, you might think about posting your own separate question to get feedback from the community.
Mike
Awesome use of the new Q&A Rand!
One of my biggest content sites actually has seen an increase in traffic since the "farmer" update. The content on it is definitely a tick above content farmed crap, but it's also not 5-star.
For what it's worth, it's monetized with AdSense ads and there's really no branded traffic to speak of naturally.
