URL String Tracking Question--Need help!
-
I am doing some research for a freelance project and found a URL receiving a decent amount of traffic from search with this url string after the normal page url (xxx.com/credit-card-counseling.aspx?match=e&query=debthelper.com&id=22097628847&id=1810807655)
Is this some sort of GA tracking code? Why would it be used on that page to track organic search hits if that happens automatically?
Would love some help figuring this out!
Thanks,
-
This is not a Google Analytics tracking code (you can find those specifications here).
This looks more like query parameters that were tacked on by some internal search feature or submission form. Do you have any forms or filters on your site? If so, that could be the cause. It could also be the case that some external site is linking to you and tacking on those parameters for whatever reason.
To solve this issue, just add a canonical tag to the header of all of your pages. This is an SEO best practice that can prevent things like query parameters from messing up your URLs and resulting in possible duplicate content issues. You can also block these parameters explicitly in Google Webmaster Tools, but I would start with the canonical approach first.
-
Hmm not sure I understand. Why would that link url be attracting organic search hits?
-
It looks like the URL has been scraped. The tags don't conform to Analytics tag conventions. You can find more on that here.
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
-
Tool to check page size for multiple url's at once
In Google Analytics under Site Speed > Page Timings, you can see all pages and their loading time compared to the average. This is very handy to check which pages maybe need some optimization. I would also like to check the size for these pages in a similar way. There are multiple tools out there like GTmetix and Pingdom that give specific information and performance insights. The problem is that they are limited to check one url at a time. Does someone know about a tool to check the page size of multiple url’s at once (and if possible to easily export to Excel)? That way I can check which pages are big in size and research/optimize them. Thanks in advance
Reporting & Analytics | | Mark.0 -
Is my tracking code incorrect?
I inherited a website that has a host of issues. I set up Goal Conversions for lead generation and am getting this URL listed as a Goal Completion Location /l/24672/2014-07-31/b4dg5 I can tell it is a date but have no other insight into what or where this page is. Does anyone have experience with this and can offer a fix? A related question is how can I find the URL that triggers the Goal Conversion. I tried editing the goal but it doesn't show the URL anywhere. And the Goal Completion Location is sort of a misnomer because it lists the URL prior to the completion. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Nobody15969167212220 -
Google SERP showing a URL with UTM_source attached - why? Can I stop it?
I just found a Google search results page showing a URL with a UTM source tag attached. Any idea how or why this has happened? How can I stop it as I'm guessing this is overwriting my organic visits with referrals from this site. See attached photo for pic of SERP page. The link is going here: http://employment.govt.nz/er/holidaysandleave/parentalleave/?utm_source=newzealandnow.govt.nz 5vxTDTi.png
Reporting & Analytics | | DanielleNZ0 -
A couple of [daft] analytics questions
Hello Mozzers, I have a couple of anaytics questions I wanted to ask. What does 'Not Set' refer to? I assume it is when the user has switched off cookies, but was wondering if this is correct or if there were other circumstances that would trigger this? When I look at my reverse goal paths, the same page is in path 1, 2 and 3... Are the pages refreshing? Thanks! Amelia
Reporting & Analytics | | CommT0 -
E Commerce and cross domain tracking on universal analytics?
Hi Mozzers, I am running into an issue where my client's website ( can refer to domain.com) uses a third party checkout site called rezovation that we can refer to checkout.rezovation.com: I went through this doc here https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/cross-domain and https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/ecommerce (for universal analytics) and I still find it confusing so here are my questions: According to my understanding I need a customized GATC to link both domains checkout.rezovation.com and domain.com? If yes(above), do we setup one customized GATC for cross domain tracking on all pages from checkout.rezovation.com and domain.com? if it is the case can someone provide detail steps on how to set it up ( I am not a coder so the easier the guideline, the better) Once cross domain tracking is set up, e commerce tracking code should be only on thank you page should be looking like the image below? Should i add manually all the extra code for the ecommerce tracking code or I can get it done via a third party website? Thank you guys! oPgn8P4.png
Reporting & Analytics | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Does analytics track an order two times by refresh on the confirmation-page?
Hi there,
Reporting & Analytics | | Webdannmark
I have a quick question. Does Google analytics track an order two times, if the user buys a product, see the confirmation page and then click refresh/click or back and forward again?
The order/tracking data must be the same, but i guess the tracking code runs for every refresh and therefore tracks the order two times in Analytics or does analytics know that it is the same order? Someone that can clearify this?Thanks! Regards
Kasper0 -
Duplicate content? Split URLs? I don't know what to call this but it's seriously messing up my Google Analytics reports
Hi Friends, This issue is crimping my analytics efforts and I really need some help. I just don't trust the analytics data at this point. I don't know if my problem should be called duplicate content or what, but the SEOmoz crawler shows the following URLS (below) on my nonprofit's website. These are all versions of our main landing pages, and all google analytics data is getting split between them. For instance, I'll get stats for the /camp page and different stats for the /camp/ page. In order to make my report I need to consolidate the 2 sets of stats and re-do all the calculations. My CMS is looking into the issue and has supposedly set up redirects to the pages w/out the trailing slash, but they said that setting up the "ref canonical" is not relevant to our situation. If anyone has insights or suggestions I would be grateful to hear them. I'm at my wit's end (and it was a short journey from my wit's beginning ...) Thanks. URL www.enf.org/camp www.enf.org/camp/ www.enf.org/foundation www.enf.org/foundation/ www.enf.org/Garden www.enf.org/garden www.enf.org/Hante_Adventures www.enf.org/hante_adventures www.enf.org/hante_adventures/ www.enf.org/oases www.enf.org/oases/ www.enf.org/outdoor_academy www.enf.org/outdoor_academy/
Reporting & Analytics | | DMoff0 -
Tagging URLs Linkbuilding and anchor links
Hi, I am going to publish a press release on a number of different websites. First and foremost, I want to build anchor links back to website for specific keywords. Secondly I want to measure clickthrus from each site using parameter tracking in GA. I want to know if I put in a url with ?utm_source=xxx, will this have any impact upon my linkbuilding efforts? i.e. will search engines attribute the keyword to the long url with tracking or the url without tracking. I understand that everything from the ? mark is ignored. However, i just want to double check before I publish release. Thanks for your help. Mik
Reporting & Analytics | | increation0