The best way to track internal links in Google Analytics
-
Hi there, we are a retail business and we have invested in quality editorial content which sits in our Blog at ourwebsite.co.uk/blog/
The Blog links to the main site (an online store) and I want to track the 'value' of the blog by how many clicks the blog content generates back to the main store.
At the moment we're using this code on the end of every link in the Blog:
?utm_source=Blog&utm_medium=Widget&utm_campaign=FromBlog
Does this affect SEO and is there a better way of doing it? Thanks.
-
I believe having a blog directly affects search traffic to your site. However, the value of your blog is indirectly linked to sales. You don't need to use a UTM at the end of your article URL's instead I would look over the traffic your entries are receiving and take GOOGLE Analytics for power users, free course, to see if they shed light on how you may link your blog to revenue performance.
-
It has no SEO impact (*) but you shouldn't use analytics campaign tracking for measuring internal links as it will mess up your data.
Several other options exists - like event tracking or custom dimensions. There is an interesting article from Cutroni on the subject you might want to check out.
Dirk
(*) provided that your destination url is using a canonical url - if not you could have duplicated content issues as both the domain.com/article.htm?utm_source=Blog&utm_medium=Widget&utm_campaign=FromBlog & domain.com/article.htm will exist
-
Hi Ben,
No It doesn't affect SEO. Webmasters use url builder only to know correct source, medium and campaign. IMO url builder is fine to use to track blog traffic.
Thanks
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 change domains in Google Analytics without losing the data
Hi there, We recently changed our domain from .COM to .NET so that all our subdomains from external pages matched. Right now in Google Console we have our new .NET website being tracked, but in GA we are still tracking .COM. It is also causing issues with MOZ crawling our site because of the .COM/.NET discrepancy. My question is what is the best way to change our Google Analytics from .COM to .NET without losing historical data and what considerations do we need to change before implementing this? Our team was concerned that just downloading the old data would be too vast and it we wouldn't be able to continue manipulating it dynamically in GA. Thanks!!
Reporting & Analytics | | cPanel-LLC.0 -
Google Analytics / Facebook UTM
Hello, I have a quick question. I am setting up conversion tracking for my Facebook ads, so I am giving each ad set a tracking URL (UTM) in order to see which ads are converting etc. Is it possible to see on analytics how much I am spending on these ads or a cost per conversion? Or does the tracking merely track general analytics data such as bounce rate, exit rate, revenue generated etc? Kind Regards, James
Reporting & Analytics | | SO_UK0 -
When I click an outgoing link from Analytics - why are they all broken?
On one of my websites, if I visit the Behavior > Site Content section of Anayltics any link I try to open is broken. Google Analytics is appending the domain before every URL causing it to open in a popup but as a broken link. Example: Trying to click a link to a page on the website at this URL: http://www.thisisanexample.com/test.html But in the Analytics popup browser this is what it tries to load: www.thisisanexample.comhttp://www.thisisanexample.com/test.html So I can't preview any of the content within Google Analytics. I feel like this is a settings issue somewhere... Any ideas?
Reporting & Analytics | | ShawnW0 -
Save a Google Analytics account
We recently started with a client who has Google Analytics already installed on their current site, but they have no idea the account login for it? Is there anyway to transfer ownership of this just based on the code?
Reporting & Analytics | | WillWatrous0 -
How many ways to use Event in Google Tag Manager for Event Tracking?
Hello Experts, How many ways to use Event in Google Tag Manager for Event Tracking? As per me there are 5 ways given below are they correct? 2nd thing if yes can you please please tell me procedure of using all or which is the best one to use? HTML 5 Data Attributes Classic Google Analytics Example: _gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/downloads/pdfs/corporateBrief.pdf']);
Reporting & Analytics | | bkmitesh
3) Universal Analytics Example: ga(‘send’, ‘pageview’, ‘page path’); query string? or is it possible without any coding on website we can configure id's in google tag manager? Thanks! BK Mitesh0 -
Google Analytics: Trackbacks & Network Referrals?
Buon Pormeriggio from 15 degrees C mostly cloudy Wetherby UK 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing
Whats the difference between Trackbacks & Network referrals within Google analytics social media reporting? I'd like to specifically understand why a link to site i'm working on withing this post:
http://huddled.co.uk/huddled-interviews-nicola-schaefer-from-liverpool-fc-e-l-i-t-e-s-8335/ is classed as Trackback & not a Network refferral 😞 Illustrated here is the link thats being recorded as a track back:
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/track-back-query_zpsbab2679b.jpg And here is the data:
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/google-trackbacks-2_zps2861fa17.jpg But why is not showing up in Network referrals? Thanks in advance,
David0 -
Setting up Google Analytics default URL
If someone has set: the default url in Google Analytics to a non-www address (http://mysite.com) then placed the UA tracking script from that GA account within the CMS framework of the website... ... and then set the permanent 301 redirect in the htaccess file to redirect to the www address (http://www.mysite.com). How less accurrate will my GA analytics measurements be considering the default url within GA is non-www and the permanent 301 redirect in htacess is to the www-address? Anyone know how reliable GA reports are until the default url in GA analytics is changed to match what is the redirected url in htaccess file? _Cindy
Reporting & Analytics | | CeCeBar0 -
Google Analytic Tracking Issue (&utm_nooverride=1)
Hello, We have a problem that means we are unable to track our AdWords and organic work at all. Looking at "/All Traffic Sources" and clicking on "Ecommerce Tab" in Analytics we can see that (made up ratio :)):
Reporting & Analytics | | jannkuzel
£2 is attributed to Google/ CPC
£1 is attributed to Google / Organic
But £100 to Payment Provider/ referral and also various referrals from banking transaction pages. All of the revenue/conversions are being credited to the payment provider or the bank security checks the payment goes through. After having done some research we have found that the problem may be that Google Analytics attributes the purchase to the most recent click (on the payment provider button) rather than the initial click on the cpc campaign/organic or direct etc. Some people have suggested using the "&utm_nooverride=1"
tag which we wanted to run past you guys and confirm whether adding
this tag to the payment provider 'buy now' button on our website will
presumably fix this referral problem? Alternatively does the tag need
to be entered into our CPC campaigns as well? Or can you please guide
us in another way? We have also heard that "cross-domain" tracking could be the solution. So we are really confused what to do and where hoping someone had maybe been through something similar and could advice before we fully launch into a solution. In addition, it should be noted that our 'Goals Funnel Visualisation'
of 'checkout' breaks up at the penultimate stage of the checkout. All
customers exit through the /checkout_process (penultimate) but are recognised returning to the successful checkout page but there is a missing link in between these
two stages as 0% pass through is shown even though they do return? Thank you so much in advance for all your help.0