InsideGoogle

Tracking Subdomains With Google Analytics

If you use subdomains religiously (like I do), then you’ll want to add the subdomain code to your Google Analytics code. See, Analytics refuses to ackowledge any page hits coming from sites other than the one you are officially tracking, so you need to add a line of code to your Analytics code.

Add the bold line, exactly where you see it:

< script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript" >
< /script >
< script type="text/javascript" >
_uacct = “UA-xxxx-x”;
_udn=”blognewschannel.com”;
urchinTracker();
< /script >

But wait, we’re not done. First, replace the xxxx-x with your account code, then replace blognewschannel.com with your primary domain.

Now, we’re still not done. See, your reporting pages won’t know the subdomain exists and list its pages properly. A page called google.blognewschannel.com/example.php would be recorded only as /example.php, making tracking similar pages on different subdomains impossible. Here’s what you do:

• In Analytics Settings, click “Filter Manager”
• Click “Add Filter”
• Enter a filter name (like “subdomains”)
• Under “Filter Type” select “Custom Filter”, then click the radio button for “Advanced”
• In Field A, select “Hostname” and type in the box “(.*)“
• In Field B, select “Request Stem” and type in the box “(.*)“
• In “Output To”, select “Request Stem” and type in the box “$A1$B1“
• Add any and all website profiles you want subdomain tracking on, and click “Finish”

Now, you should start seeing subdomain reporting data shortly, tracked on every subdomain that has proper Analytics code.

It should go without saying that you do not type in the quotation marks at any point. I just wrote those to help you out.

The page this information came from is incorrect, since it refers to interface elements that no longer exist. Still, this solution should work. If it doesn’t, let me know if you have any problems.

If you don’t want to track these in the same profile, but to give each subdomain a different profile, then you need to create multiple profiles for the same domain, put the code for the specific subdomain profiles only on those subdomains, and create an Include filter so that profile knows it is to only track that one subdomain.

Use the filter type “Include only traffic to a subdirectory”, and submit the subdirectory as “^sub\.example\.com“, with “sub” being the name of the subdomain. This even includes the “www” subdomain (as “^www\.example\.com“). This method is explained here.

If you want to track a portion of your site hosted on a third party site, such as a shopping cart or del.icio.us links, change your outgoing link to read:

< a href=
"javascript:__utmLinker('https://www.securecart.com/?store=parameters');" >
Purchase Now< /a >

Just put your link where that link is (oh, and change the link text). Setting your del.icio.us links to automatically include this code is something I wouldn’t know how to do, but its not the worst idea.

November 14th, 2005 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Analytics, Services, General | 6 comments