CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-analytics
Bobby Jack
Bobby Jack

Reputation: 16049

Using Google Analytics, if I explicitly log an event using _trackPageview, does that count as a 'real' page view?

For example, if I have a news page that's already being tracked via GA and I add a javascript event to capture clicks on a specific link to the news page (e.g. navigation) am I then 'double counting'?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 687

Answers (3)

CaseyChesh
CaseyChesh

Reputation: 46

If a fake pageview is not beneficial in this situation, and from your description that you're looking to track an engagement click on your page, use Event Tracking instead of Pageviews.

Tracking a click/event is easy (especially if you're already using Javascript). The best part is that this event is not considered a page view, keeping those stats safe.

The implementation is simple and allows for quite a bit of customization:

_trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value)

Below is an example of a link that's been encoded with an event tag:

<a href="#" onClick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Videos', 'Play', 'Baby\'s First Birthday']);">Play</a>

Here's the Google Analytics resource page on Event Tagging: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/eventTrackerGuide.html

Upvotes: 3

Ewan Heming
Ewan Heming

Reputation: 4648

What you're doing is registering what's called a 'virtual page view'. To GA it's seen as a real page view and shows up in your content report's and page view counts etc. This is often useful if you want to show a page view for media that GA can't track. It's also commonly used to count an event, such as a button click, as a goal conversion.

If you just want to record the event and not count a page view you should look at using GA event tracking instead.

Upvotes: 0

doug
doug

Reputation: 70068

Well it's not a real page view, but Google Analytics thinks that it is--i.e., it shows up in your pageview counts.

Fortunately, it's easy to filter those so they don't contaminate your pageview data.

So for instance, 

_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', 'unique_virtual_pagename']);

So in your GA Browser, you'll see the number of clicks actually shown as the number of pageviews of *unique_virtual_pagename*, which is not good.

There are a two ways to fix this (that i am aware of): (i) set a temporary filter at the bottom of the pageview table; or (ii) set a persistent (c*ustom*) filter in your Admin Panel (which i think is best) to remove pageviews having only the name *unique_virtual_pagename*, or whatever name you've chosen. This will of course take up to 24 hours to set, so the best plan is to set the filter first, then add the javascript to your page. so the filter is active when you begin collecting clicks.

But that just solves the problem of disaggregating these virtual pageviews from your real pageviews, you still need a way to count/record them.

I prefer to create a separate profile in these cases. So first, i filter the virtual pageviews from my actual pageviews using a custom filter, then i create a new profile which has another filter excluding everything but these virtual pageviews. I usually give that profile a name based on the event.

Upvotes: 1

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