It’s common to track multiple domains or multiple subdomains with a single Google Analytics property. In such cases, the normal page report only displays the page path part, and it is not possible to determine which domain’s page view is being viewed on the report screen. To avoid such problems, it is common to set a view filter such as “Overwrite the page path with the concatenated characters of the host name and the page path”.
On the other hand, there are some problems with such a setting, such as usability of the report screen. In this article, I will explain what kind of problems occur when setting commonly used view filters, and suggest improvements to avoid this problem in one specific case. .
Problems with Commonly Used Hostname Aggregation
Commonly used view filters that overwrite the page path with the concatenated string of the host name and page path have two major problems. Now let’s explain it step by step.
Broken link from page report to page
Some Google Analytics page reports have an icon like the red frame in the figure below.
This icon is a link to the “page” displayed in the report so that you can easily check the contents of that page.
However, at that time, the protocol and host name are not the original values, but the protocol and host name set in the “Website URL” item in the view settings are used. That is, link to the URL generated by concatenating the page path value to the protocol and hostname of the “Website URL”.
At this time, if the view filter is set to “Overwrite the page path with the concatenated characters of the host name and page path”, the host name will be concatenated twice in the finally opened URL . I’m stuck and I can’t transition to the correct page.
Broken Landing Pages Report in Search Console
Among the reports activated when you link Search Console and Google Analytics is the “Landing Pages” report. This report differs from what you see in the Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages report, and also includes metrics specific to Search Console.
Specifically, you can see the number of impressions, number of clicks, number of sessions, and number of conversions for each page on the search engine (Google). In other words, search engine performance and website performance can be integrated and viewed through the “landing page” axis.
However, as a mechanism, this report also uses the values of “Website URL” and “Page Path” in the view settings when integrating Search Console and Google Analytics data on a page-by-page basis. Therefore, if the view filter integrates the host name and the view filter, it cannot be used.
Unlike the page transition link problem, this problem is serious because the report itself is unusable (However, there are currently few people who can use this report correctly, so it is important that they are not aware of the impact I think).
However, in the case of this report, it is necessary to match the URL listed in Search Console, so there are many cases where the report is not displayed correctly due to other reasons such as redirects, so be careful.
Cases assumed in this improvement measure
The improvement measure this time is that the site measured by one property is
- The main site configuration is completed with one domain (including subdomains)
- A small number of pages such as inquiry forms and carts are on different platforms and have different domains (including subdomains).
- Pages served outside the main domain will not be affected by the above issue
Assuming such a case. Conversely, if a company that operates multiple services wants to integrate them into one property and analyze Google Analytics data, this improvement cannot be used.
Improvement measures this time
Up to the point of using the view filter, this improvement is the same as the example that is generally used, but the setting contents of the view filter have been slightly devised. Here, we will use this blog as an example to explain what settings should be made.
Site structure of this blog
This blog operates on the domain “sem-technology.info”. This blog site does not have a subdomain. Also, if you transition to the inquiry page from the blog site, you will transition to a page with a subdomain in the form of “mautic.sem-technology.info”. This subdomain is operated using a marketing automation tool called Mautic, and distributes a small part of content such as inquiry forms, landing pages when implementing some campaigns, and campaign application forms. It is used only for
In other words, it perfectly matches the “case assumed in this improvement measure” described above.
View filter settings
As some of you may have already noticed, I am setting up a view filter like below instead of the view filter generally described in how to set up cross-domain tracking.
By setting the host name set in the “Field A → Citation A” column to “mautic.sem-technology.info”, this view filter will be applied only when “the host name is “mautic.sem-technology.info”. Can be limited to “only hits that are info”. “Field B → Quote B” is set as usual (getting the entire page path for use in the next configuration field).
Finally, by specifying “/mautic$B1” for “Link destination URI” in “Output destination → Configuration”, “/mautic” is added to the beginning of the page path, and the URL can be distinguished from the main site side. (assuming that the subdirectory “/mautic/” does not exist on the main site side).
Check with real-time report
Once the above settings are done, let’s check if the settings are correct in the real-time report. As a confirmation point,
- Access the domain side used in some pages and check the value of the page path in the real-time report
- Access the page on the main site side and check the value of the page path
It is two points.
summary
It’s a very detailed part, but the “popup link that opens the page” in the Google Analytics page report is very useful. While it is convenient, the larger the site, the more cases where this link cannot be used. If your site meets the prerequisites above and you are dissatisfied with the behavior of the popup link that opens the page, why not refer to this article and try to improve it?
