CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-analyticssingle-page-application
msiebert
msiebert

Reputation: 45

Google Analytics: Unifying Single Page Application URLs that Contain IDs

We'd like to track behavior flow in our single page application using Google Analytics. We use the hash to route in the application, and we can track the URL within the app with virtual pageviews as described in Google's documentation. However, many of the URLs in the application contain ids, and are considered distinct URLs, despite representing the same page. Thus, we're unable to get accurate behavior flow information in Google Analytics for those pageviews.

For example,

http://example.com/#/dashboards/8a86204a-7b10-4bf5-961b-be16d209f2b0

and

http://example.com/#/dashboards/d8d6a9b5-b6f1-4159-bd6b-622e628f87b2

would be considered distinct pages, when really, we'd like to group these two urls together to determine how users use the dashboard view, rather than how users use a particular dashboard.

Is there a way to unify URLs like this so we can view metrics and behavior flow in aggregate (either in Google Analytics, or in the SPA)?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 387

Answers (1)

Igneel64
Igneel64

Reputation: 618

Completing the answer from @Eike. You can indeed use virtual pageviews to just set the url to '/#/dashboards' using the command ga('set', 'page', '/#/dashboards'); and then send your pageview. But in my opinion keep the individuality in your data and use a custom dimension to achieve the aggregation you want. Meaning that you should define first a custom dimension that is named for example 'sitePageAggregate'. This dimension will take the value of your website's 'section' url for example 'dashboards' or 'search results' or anything else that might need the aggregation for the behavior flow. This can be done by code in before your pageview hit in each page like this

ga('set', 'dimensionN', 'dashboards');

where N is the custom dimension index. More info on how you can do this here. Now you will just go to your GA interface, Under Behavior -> Site Content -> All pages and just set the secondary dimension as 'sitePageAggregate'. In that way you are retrieving the results you want.

Upvotes: 1

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