Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to track my actual traffic source using Google Analytics which are now showing as referral traffic?
-
Hi Mozzers, I went through many Q&As in the community this morning. I found a solution where I could just remove the referral site in analytics>admin>property>tracking info>referral exclusion list. So I removed paypal.com which was the main referral traffic. I thought the problem is solved.
Later today I got another order, now the referral traffic is from eway.com, now what? Yes I know I will add this to the exclusion list but there will be many more referral sites.
My main concern is I am not able to track the actual traffic source. How do I do that?
1. Do I need to use google url tracking for all my pages?
2. Do I need to add tracking code in each page of the site?
3. Is there a way to track the actual source of this traffic, now that the transaction is already made but reflects as referral traffic in Google Analytics? -
1. Adding this doesn't change the way a transaction is tracked, but instead makes it so that you can view the 'event' that fired under the event tracking in GA. If you look under here (Behavior > Events) can you see the successful event and the source/medium that drove it?
2. Have you also tried the previously mentioned segmentation under User Explorer? None of these fixes are going to change the way the data appears in the acquisition report (switching to PayPal Payments Pro usually does the trick, but is more expensive). All we're really looking to do here is find another way to attribute the conversions to their source.
I'd recommend revisiting my most recent reply on how to segment the users under User Explorer as this will likely give you the best insights.Let me know if you run into any issues there and I'll help you out.
-
Hi Trenton,
I will try the suggestions and fixes, will let you how it goes.
I did some research and tried these other fixes.
1. I have added a Event Tracking Code (EDT) to the buy buttons of Paypal and Eway. The EDT is added where the user clicks on the buy button and leaves our website from there. This is done to record the button click and send the report to Google analytics.
2. Enabled 'Auto Return' and Paypal PDT (Payment Data Transfer) which transfers the users GA reports.So, after applying this I got two transactions recently, but both are recorded under direct traffic in GA Aquisition report. Attaching a snapshot.
I am not clear where is the traffic coming from. Any thoughts. -
3 - In User Explorer, sort by transactions and you should be able to see users w/transactions. More specifically, if you create a segment (next to All Users) and create a new custom segment with:
- Conditions > Filter User > Include
- Transactions > per user > ≥ > 1
Then by looking through just this segment (select it on the top of the page) you will be able to see only users that have a transaction. You can then dive into these user's sessions by clicking their 'Client Id' and you can see the full path they took to conversion. This is assuming they didn't view any pages that did not have the GA code on them.
This combined with your other fixes should solve your issue and allow you to determine what drove the conversions!
Campaign timeouts - The issue here is that any new channel that drives traffic may not get the credit it deserves.
I would recommend to keep this at 6-12 months. You don't want credit going to a single channel because it drove the original session 24 months ago, because that was not the session that carried purchase intent.Good luck! Let us know if we can help any further on this!
Trenton
-
Hey Trenton,
Thanks for helping me out. I will try to give me as much coordination possible. Here's the information you asked for:
-My site is built on Magento platform.
-We use two payment gateways 1. paypal.com and 2. eway.com - I guess these are the 3rd party payment gateways you are refering to.2- So I am in the process of including the GA tracking code on every page of the site.
3- Yes I understand the previous customers cannot be tracked. I tried looking at the user explorer but doesn't show any revenue earned. Attaching a snapshot.
Also, for now, I have including both paypal.com and eway.com in the referral exclusion list. Plus as mentioned earlier in session settings I have made the campaign timeout zero -> Should I be cautious?
Let me know how should I proceed now.
-
Hi,
Thank you for the tip. Campaign timeout was set at 6 months, I have changed it to zero months now. So no cookies will be saved now, will this have any problems regarding tracking the user's original source page? For example, did he come from a social media platform, guest blog or a returning customer who already knows my brand?
-
Hey DebashishB,
I'd love to help you get this sorted out. I've dealt with PayPal & other 3rd party payment authorization platforms causing issues with correct attribution in GA before and I know that it can be a huge hassle.
Before I specifically give you a solution, could you provide a little more information about your site? What platform is it built on? Do you use a 3rd party drop-in for shopping cart and payment? Any additional information you can provide would be wonderful! Linking to the site specifically would be great, but I understand if you would rather not.
2 - Yes, you will want to ensure that the GA tracking code is included on every page of your site to ensure proper attribution.
3 - As Alick300 mentioned, unfortunately you cannot retroactively manipulate the data. So transactions already completed will appear as referral; however, under Audience>User Explorer you may be able to segment your data in a way that you can isolate the user that these transactions are tied to and learn more about their progression throughout your site & their path to conversion.
I''ll follow up when you have had a chance to provide further information on this.
- Trenton
-
Hi Debashish,
It worth mentioning that the referral exclusion list does not work for traffic that is already cookied. So if a returning visitor had a referral source set before you added it to the list and then visits as direct, they will still have that referral source. Please check your session settings under Property -> Tracking Info -> Session Settings -> Campaign Timeout. If it's set to six months for example, it will take six months for all the self referrals to disappear.
Hope this helps.
Thanks
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Server Connection Error when using Google Speed Test Insight and GTMetrix
Hi Guys, Recently got into the issue when testing load speed of my website (https://solvid.co.uk). Occasionally, Google Speed Insights gives me a server connection error which states _"PageSpeed was unable to connect to the server. Ensure that you are using the correct protocol (_http vs https), the page loads in a browser, and is accessible on the public internet." Also, GTMetrix gives me an error as well, which states the following: "An error occurred fetching the page: HTTPS error: SSl connect attempt failed" All of my redirects seem to be set-up correctly as well as the SSL certificate. I've contacted my hosting provider (godaddy), they are saying that everything is fine with the server and the installation. Also, tried in different browsers in incognito mode, still gives me the same error. Until yesterday I haven't had such a problem. I've also attached the error screenshot links. I would really appreciate your help! Dmytro UxchPYR M52iPDf
Technical SEO | | solvid1 -
How google crawls images and which url shows as source?
Hi, I noticed that some websites host their images to a different url than the one their actually website is hosted but in the end google link to the one that the site is hosted. Here is an example: This is a page of a hotel in booking.com: http://www.booking.com/hotel/us/harrah-s-caesars-palace.en-gb.html When I try a search for this hotel in google images it shows up one of the images of the slideshow. When I click on the image on Google search, if I choose the Visit Page button it links to the url above but the actual image is located in a totally different url: http://r-ec.bstatic.com/images/hotel/840x460/135/13526198.jpg My question is can you host your images to one site but show it to another site and in the end google will lead to the second one?
Technical SEO | | Tz_Seo0 -
Google Cache showing a different URL
Hi all, very weird things happening to us. For the 3 URLs below, Google cache is rendering content from a different URL (sister site) even though there are no redirects between the 2 & live page shows the 'right content' - see: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://giltedgeafrica.com/tours/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://giltedgeafrica.com/about/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://giltedgeafrica.com/about/team/ We also have the exact same issue with another domain we owned (but not anymore), only difference is that we 301 redirected those URLs before it changed ownership: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.preferredsafaris.com/Kenya/2 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.preferredsafaris.com/accommodation/Namibia/5 I have gone ahead into the URL removal Tool and got denied for the first case above ("") and it is still pending for the second lists. We are worried that this might be a sign of duplicate content & could be penalising us. Thanks! ps: I went through most questions & the closest one I found was this one (http://cloudz.click/community/q/page-disappeared-from-google-index-google-cache-shows-page-is-being-redirected) but it didn't provide a clear answer on my question above
Technical SEO | | SouthernAfricaTravel0 -
Keyword not showing
Hi, we are trying to rank this keyword "Human Resource Books" for Silvercreek.ca for a long time. But somehow, the keyword is not ranked by google at all. Is there a reason why Google is denying our site? What did we do wrong? Can anyone help to see what wrong with tis siet www.silvercreekpress.ca? thanks
Technical SEO | | solution.advisor0 -
Does anyone use buzzfeed to creat links traffic and increase brand
Hi i would like to know if anyone uses http://www.buzzfeed.com to create links, gain traffic and increase brand awareness. I have signed up for an account but cannot get it to work and would like some help. I can get my content on there but cannot manage to get the links to work I signed up for this account a while back and a friend shown me how to use it but i have forgotten. here is my page http://www.buzzfeed.com/lifestylemagazine some links work and some links do not. what i am trying to do is to publish stories from my site as well as other sites and have the link included where you press the title and it goes to the site any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
MBG Tracker...how to use it?
So I am a new blogger that has been submitting guest blog posts to a number of different blogs. It was recommended that I use the MBG Tracker so I can track the back links. The problem is that I am totally lost on how to use this tool. As I said before I am new to this whole thing and I am not really sure what constitutes a "base link" and a "back link." In the author bylines we are linking to different pages within a larger website. If anyone can help me I would really appreciate it!
Technical SEO | | Stroll0 -
Google.ca is showing our US site instead of our Canada Site
When our Canadian users who search on google.ca for our brand (e.g. Travelocity, Travelocity hotels, etc.), the first few results our from our US site (travelocity.com) rather than our Canadian site (travelocity.ca). In Google Webmaster Tools, we've adjusted the geotargeting settings to focus on the appropriate locale, but the wrong country TLD is still coming up at the top via google.ca. What's the best way to ensure our Canadian site comes up instead of the US site on google.ca? Thanks, Tory Smith
Technical SEO | | travelocitysearch
Travelocity0 -
Why google index my IP URL
hi guys, a question please. if site:112.65.247.14 , you can see google index our website IP address, this could duplicate with our darwinmarketing.com content pages. i am not quite sure why google index my IP pages while index domain pages, i understand this could because of backlink, internal link and etc, but i don't see obvious issues there, also i have submit request to google team to remove ip address index, but seems no luck. Please do you have any other suggestion on this? i was trying to do change of address setting in Google Webmaster Tools, but didn't allow as it said "Restricted to root level domains only", any ideas? Thank you! boson
Technical SEO | | DarwinChinaSEO0