CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptgoogle-analyticsanalyticsgoogle-analytics-api
Atheist
Atheist

Reputation: 525

Google analytics 'losing' the user when going between subdomains

I'm having some trouble with google analytis. We have a site where the user lands on the landing page, fills out personal information (name, address, email etc). This site is located on http://link.<domain> When the form is submitted, the user is directed to a secure site on https://ssl.<domain> Where he/she fills out credit-card information.

The problem is, that the google analytics 'lose' track of the customer session. The statistics show, the referrer for the site on ssl.(domain) is the site on link. and not the actual referrer who led the user to the landing page - this of course wreaks havoc on our goal-page, which is also situated on http://link.<domain>.

my tracking-code is

    _gaq.push(
    ['_setAccount', "UA-XXXXXXXX-XX"],
    ['_setDomainName', '<domain>'],
    ['_trackPageview']
);

I've set the 

['_setDomainName', '(domain)']

but it does not seem to help. I hope someone can help me out.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1430

Answers (4)

user2534643
user2534643

Reputation: 1

_gaq.push(['_setAllowLinker', true]);

is what you are missing. That makes Analytics track subdomains, and even different domains, together as one entity.

This is especially interesting when tracking ecommerce transactions across different domains (e.g. when your basket or checkout is handled by a third party).

The words to look up and research are "cross domain tracking".

See here for more information.

Upvotes: 0

RandomUs1r
RandomUs1r

Reputation: 4190

Sounds like you got it to work, but take a look at: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingSite . It seems to have the extra params you need.

Upvotes: 0

Avi
Avi

Reputation: 2383

In addition to what Crayon said, I think you will also need to use the _addIgnoredRef() api as described here. Once you do this, you should clear your cookies and then try again. I can probably help you better if you have an actual link that I can test.

In your case, I think you'll need to use:

_gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'link.<domain>']);

Upvotes: 2

CrayonViolent
CrayonViolent

Reputation: 32517

If the domains are the same and the only difference is the subdomain, make sure that you are setting the _setDomainName value to the root domain name (without a dot prefix).

Example:

link.yoursite.com

ssl.yoursite.com

for both, you should have on-page the following:

['_setDomainName', 'yoursite.com']

If the root domains are different, navigating to a new root domain will cause the session to break. This is because GA uses 1st party cookie tracking, and cookies on domain1.com cannot be read from domain2.com. In order to overcome this, you will also need to add _setAllowLinker to your on-page code, and also pop additional code when the visitor clicks on the link to the ssl domain, to ensure that the GA cookie info is passed to the new domain via URL. Here is GA's reference on cross-domain tracking for more details.

Upvotes: 2

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