Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google Analytics Goal/Event/SOMETHING to show only Wordpress "Posts", not pages, etc
-
Hi all,
Our site is build on Wordpress and formerly the post URL's had the typical date format at the beginning. This made it easy for me to look at, for example, all search traffic to the blog. I would just view URL's containing /2014/ and /2015/ and boom.
We have since removed the dates from the URL's with proper redirects etc, which is great, but now I can't figure out a way to look at ONLY the blog in GA. I like to track a KPI of 'search visits to blog posts' and I can't figure out how to now.
Can I set up a GA event that only fires when the post type template for blog posts loads? Some other solution? I'm lost here, and there's gotta be a good way to do it...
-
This is exactly what I was hoping would be possible. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
-
There's a couple of approaches, but I think the content grouping feature is your best bet. Here's the official overview page: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2853423?hl=en
Essentially, you'll be firing code on that page template that tells GA to add the page to a specific content grouping OR you can tell GA to dynamically assign content grouping based upon a full or partial URL, or page title. In this scenario, I think the first option is more likely. The full instructions are here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2853546?hl=en. Essentially, on blog pages, you'd want to fire your normal GA script, with the bold line below added:
This is going to be easier with Google Tag Manager if you're able to do that, but if not, hard-coding into the site will work as well - you'll probably have to create a header-blog.php file in your theme and use that header in your blog instead of your normal one. To my knowledge, Yoast GA doesn't support this yet, but there is a ticket for it at https://github.com/Yoast/google-analytics-for-wordpress/issues/26.
Content groupings aren't historical, so you'll also want to set up a "Blog" segment that includes any of your old parameters (eg 2015 in the URL), as well as the new parameters (content grouping = blog). This should make historical analysis easier.
I don't want to drone on for 10 more paragraphs, so check out those resources and let me know if you have more questions on implementation.
-
I was thinking about this some more after I posted last night. If your site is organized into sections with subpages, then you don't have to create a filter for every one. For example, if you exclude pages containing http://mysite.com/services/, then you would get rid of not only that page, but http://mysite.com/services/service1, http://mysite.com/services/service2, etc.
(And if your site is not organized in that fashion, you might want to look into adjusting it, as such a structure would likely help your SEO.)
-
Have a ton of pages, but this could be the answer if there's not a better way. Thanks for the response.
-
One idea, which would only work if you don't have an overwhelming number of pages, would be to make a series of Exclude Filters in the pages report. (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1034832?hl=en) You could then save the set of filters with the "Add to dashboard" feature (http://www.blastam.com/blog/index.php/2010/09/google-analytics-tips-save-filtered-reports).
Hope that helps,
Ira
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
-
Custom Events Not Showing in GA4
I have some experience in successfully creating custom events for GA4 via Tag Manager, but I have one account where my events are firing in GTM but not showing at all in GA4 (not real time or anywhere). I have twice done them over and published my changes but still no luck. Any ideas what else the issue can be? There are no internal filters at the moment. Thank you.
Reporting & Analytics | | bradsimonis1 -
Google analytics suddenly stopped tracking all my landing pages
Hey guys. I love the new update of GA. Looks so clean. So, of course, I was excited to see how my landing pages were doing. I went to behavior, all content, all pages. And I noticed it's only showing me 19 pages out of the 93 I have indexed. And none of the top ones at all! Can't find them anywhere in GA! Anyone seen this before? Thank you so much
Reporting & Analytics | | Meier0 -
Collecting post codes / zip codes in Google Analytics - Terms of Service
Hi Mozzers, Just reading up on Google Analytic's Terms of Service and wondering if collecting post codes / zip codes (from a website's 'Find my nearest...' tool) adhere's to the following: "You will not (and will not allow any third party to) use the Service to track, collect or upload any data that personally identifies an individual (such as a name, email address or billing information), or other data which can be reasonably linked to such information by Google." What do you think?
Reporting & Analytics | | A_Q0 -
How does Google Maps/G+ traffic show up in Analytics?
Hi Moz Community, I've been trying to figure out how traffic from Google Maps (and G+) shows up in Google Analytics and am struggling to find a good answer online. If someone finds a business through Google Maps and then clicks on the website in the Maps listing, does that show up as a referral from Google Maps? Our site shows virtually zero traffic from Google Maps even though we have a number of listing. Two related questions: if someone clicks through to a G+ page from a Maps result and then visits our website from the G+ page, does that show up in Analytics as a referral from G+? Is traffic from Google Maps or G+ ALSO counted as organic traffic? (Would it be possible to accidentally double-count a visit as both organic and a referral from Maps/G+? Thanks everybody!
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnGroves0 -
Google Analytics - Next Page Path is the Same URL?
Hey Everyone, I have a Google analytics question. I'm looking through a client's site and when I look at the next page path, I get the same URL as the next path. For example, on the homepage, the next page path I get is the homepage again? This happens for all URL's, is this an implementation error? Is there a way to fix this? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | EvansHunt0 -
Inurl:login.aspx + "register" "retrieve password" + intext:employment
Someone came to my website with this keyword a few times, I was just wondering if anyone knows what that is? inurl:login.aspx + "register" "retrieve password" + intext:employment
Reporting & Analytics | | Rubix0 -
Comparing % Change, Google Analytics
Hey Mozzers, Is there a simple way to compare the "% Change" in traffic when comparing two separate time periods in a single Google Analytics report? When comparing data from two separate time periods, an exported CSV doesn't include the % Change (booo!), and there's no option to sort by % Change within the GA report, essentially forcing you to scroll through all the results to pinpoint the major movers and shakers. I'm not averse to using spreadsheets to sort this data, but I'm thinking that I'd likely need a macro to make this work, something like this. However, none of the macros on that page are working (possibly because they were designed for a previous version of Analytics). All suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dangaul0 -
How do shortened links show up in Google Analytics?
Hey, How do shortened links show up in GA? So if I tweet about something and use bitly, does twitter get the referral? I am thinking not. I have never seen bitly show up as a referrer, but we gets lots of clicks from those links. Hmmmm. Anyone? E
Reporting & Analytics | | ErinTM0