CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phppdfgoogle-analyticstracking
Milos Cuculovic
Milos Cuculovic

Reputation: 20223

How to track pdf downloads from properly (Google Analytics)?

On my website, there is a possibility to download pdfs. Until here, everything is fine.

Now, I would like to track the pdf downloads. This can be done by using Google Analytics Events in the link of the pdf: 

<a onclick="var that=this;_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','Download','PDF',this.href]);setTimeout(function(){location.href=that.href;},400);return false;" href="pdfs/my-file.pdf">Download my file</a>

The problem is that if somebady will download the pdf from a search engine, not directly from the website, this will not be tracked.

Do you know a proper method on how to track that?

Should I implement something on the server side when I am rendering the pdf, that will trigger a GA event?

Thank you in advance.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1563

Answers (4)

Chad Brown
Chad Brown

Reputation: 1667

I would seriously look at using a product like bit.ly or Orangedox to track PDF downloads & views. Orangedox even allows you to track the time spent on each page of the PDF and works when people find your PDF via google.

Disclaimer: I work for Orangedox

Upvotes: 0

Andrew C
Andrew C

Reputation: 562

If adding PHP code to your site isn't an option, there are third party tools that will process your web logs and upload the list of directly linked (a.k.a. hotlinked) files to your Google Analytics account. Angelfish Software comes to mind.

Upvotes: 0

Milos Cuculovic
Milos Cuculovic

Reputation: 20223

Here is one solution I just found:

php-ga Google Analytics for PHP

With php-ga, there is a possibility to simulate pageviews on the server side. So, now for me, when somebody downloads a pdf, I am also calling this code:

        // Initilize GA Tracker
        $tracker = new GoogleAnalytics\Tracker('UA-5824718-6', 'mdpi.com');

        // Assemble Visitor information
        // (could also get unserialized from database)
        $visitor = new GoogleAnalytics\Visitor();
        $visitor->setIpAddress($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
        $visitor->setUserAgent($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
        $visitor->setScreenResolution('1024x768');

        // Assemble Session information
        // (could also get unserialized from PHP session)
        $session = new GoogleAnalytics\Session();

        // Get filename from the previous request
        $filename = parse_url(urldecode($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']), PHP_URL_PATH);

        // Assemble Page information
        $page = new GoogleAnalytics\Page($filename);
        $page->setTitle($filename);

        // Track page view
        $tracker->trackPageview($page, $session, $visitor);

        $this->downloadFile($file, 'application/pdf');

The only problem I will have to fix is how to filter bots (Robots)...

Upvotes: 2

Dale
Dale

Reputation: 10469

You could use a robots.txt file to block pdf files from search listings, meaning they would get the previous page and have to click the link.

For example:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /*.pdf$

Upvotes: 0

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