Google Analytics Experts

From EpikOne

Google Analytics Frequently Asked Questions

Analytics Experts invites you to utilize our Google Analytics public knowledge base. The following FAQs are provided by our Professional Services team. This knowledge base serves as an archives for actual responses to Support Tickets, Ask An Expert and contributions made on the official Google Analytics Help Group.

In the event you are unable to find the answer you are looking for, we welcome you to submit a question to Ask An Expert. For more complex issues, please consider Professional Support from Analytics Experts.


  1. Rating: +1

    We have urchin.js GA Tracking code on all our pages, I want to track visits from Adwords on a hourly basis like the hour report in Visitor Trending. How can it be possible? (posted: 7/15/2008)

  2. Rating: +3

    Could you help me understand what happens when a visitor uses the back button during a funnel process? (posted: 7/15/2008)

  3. Is it possible to have urchin.js and ga.js tracking code in the same page, and linked to two distinct accounts? (posted: 7/18/2008)

  4. Rating: +3

    How do I eliminate internal traffic? (posted: 8/4/2008)

  5. How do you track a pdf. file? (posted: 8/4/2008)

  6. Rating: +2

    What is Margin? (posted: 8/4/2008)

  7. Can we import our website data from Google Analytics? (posted: 8/4/2008)

  8. We are on Eastern time. Is Google's "day" based on Pacific time? If so, can we change the time zone so it matches ours? (posted: 8/4/2008)

  9. Our site is a Yahoo store. Google Analytics is displaying site traffic reports, but it is not displaying e-commerce (sales) info. I believe that we followed the procedure to add tracking code to the Shopping Cart confirmation page, however we are not getting results. (posted: 8/8/2008)

  10. I am attempting to add the additional code to capture Transaction Record Details and am confused as to what exactly should be put in the [Affiliation] variable and its purpose? Also, should the [Total] variable include shipping and tax? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  11. Rating: -2

    How do I track conversions or goals with custom segmentation? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  12. How do internet cookies work? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  13. Rating: +2

    How does the __utmLinker and __utmLinkPost functions work? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  14. Rating: -1

    Will Google Analytics work on my Intranet? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  15. Can I use my current link tags rather than those in Google Analytics? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  16. When do I need to update the UTM? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  17. Rating: -1

    How can I track my RSS generated traffic? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  18. All of my reports list a single page from my website, why? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  19. Do I need utm_term in my Master Tracking Code file? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  20. Rating: -1

    Site overlay is not working, why not? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  21. Do I need to place the Google Analytics tracking code in the tags? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  22. How do I create an additional Google Analytics profile for an existing website? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  23. My AdWords and Overture links are tagged, but I do not see any data in my campaign reports? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  24. Rating: +1

    How does the UTM identify the referring site? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  25. I see lots of garbled data in my e-commerce reports. Why? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  26. What is the difference between Marketing Referring Source report and E-commerce Referring Sources report? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  27. Rating: +1

    If a visitor clicks on multiple advertising campaign links, which campaign gets "credit" for the conversion? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  28. Are the keywords in the Overall Keyword Conversion report coming from organic or paid results? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  29. Can I track banner ad clicks on my website? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  30. Rating: +1

    Information about the utmLinker and the __utma, __utmb and __utmc cookies? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  31. Can I have multiple goal pages for single funnel process? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  32. Is there a way to track more than 3 levels in the Initial Navigation report? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  33. What happens when a visitor uses the Back button during a funnel process? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  34. Are the keywords in the Overall Keyword Conversion report coming from organic or paid results? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  35. What is the Google Analytics log file format? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  36. How do I use the Google Analytics e-commerce code with MIVA 5? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  37. Does Google index my Google Analytics visitation logs? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  38. How is the file-system navigation pane in the "All Navigation" report created? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  39. Why does my website, or one of my website aliases, keep showing up in my referring sources report? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  40. Does Google Analytics "purify" my e-commerce data? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  41. Why is the term "other" showing up in my reports? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  42. Is there a global case setting for Google Analytics? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  43. My site uses a third party shopping cart and sub-domains. How do I set it up? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  44. How do I import non-AdWords cost data into Google Analytics? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  45. What is the name of the filter field that has the hostname? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  46. How do I add a new CPC account to an existing profile? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  47. Are my log sources deleted when I delete a profile? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  48. What happens if the browser has cookies turned off? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  49. Where to find urchinTracker JavaScript function. (posted: 8/8/2008)

  50. Rating: +2

    Some of my test e-commerce transactions are missing from Google Analytics, why? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  51. Rating: +3

    How often is my Google Analytics data processed and how is it processed? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  52. What is the "super admin user" referenced in the Google Analytics help? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  53. What is the maximum number of funnel processes per profile? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  54. How does Google Analytics calculate $Index? (posted 8/8/2008)

  55. What does the AdWords function {keyword} do? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  56. Do I need a funnel process to create a goal? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  57. How large is the Google Analytics internal database? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  58. Rating: -1

    Can we transfer visitation data from one Google account to another? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  59. Rating: -1

    Does Google Analytics work with OS Commerce? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  60. Rating: +0

    What should the utmz cookie contain when using AdWords auto-tagging? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  61. What query string variables should I exclude from my profile traffic? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  62. Rating: -7

    Why dont we see the AOL Browser in the browser version report? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  63. Does Google Analytics create a new log source for a duplicate profile? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  64. Missing Data from Initial Navigation Report. (posted: 8/8/2008)

  65. Rating: +1

    How do I delete a profile from Google Analytics? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  66. Can I use AdWords auto-tagging to track site-targeted and vertically targeted ads? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  67. Rating: +1

    Will Google Analytics work with the Starter Edition of Google AdWords? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  68. Is there a way to retrieve a deleted profile? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  69. The statistics in Google Analytics are different from program X, why? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  70. Rating: +1

    Excluding hits from a proxy with dynamic IP address. (posted: 8/8/2008)

  71. Is there a way to automate the report export process on a scheduled basis, without human intervention? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  72. How do I test filter changes? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  73. Rating: +1

    How do I track forms that submit to themselves? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  74. I am trying to set-up e-commerce tracking and see the code, but am unclear to what level it is cut and pasting the code, or if I need to change parameters for it to actually track. (posted: 8/8/2008)

  75. I have created a profile which includes traffic from a single IP address (mine). The reports for this profile doesn’t show some pages regularly. The same pages are tracked on other profiles of the same web site. What could be the reasons for this error? Could it have anything to do with the cache ? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  76. Consider a funnel of 2 steps and a goal page : step 1 , step 2 , goal page A visitor enters the funnel at step 2 and leaves the funnel. The same visitor is browsing the web site (within the same session) and enters the funnel again, this time at step 1, continue to step 2 and to the goal page. How would the reports and the funnal visualization report on this visit ? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  77. I created a second profile with an include custom filter for a specific referring domain. The weird thing is that the data regard that referring site is different in terms of visitors, time on site, etc. between the two profiles (the general one and the designated one with the filter). Why the difference? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  78. Is the site overlay report an accurate way to gauge how visitors are navigating through my website? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  79. How do I set up daily reports for Google Analytics? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  80. How can I create a profile that only includes visitors who views 2 or more pages or spent a specific amount of time on the site? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  81. We need assistance setting up the search query parameter for GAs new Site Search reports. We used searchdata as the query parameter but it is not tracking correctly. We made sure that the GA tracking code is also on our search pages, but still no luck. (posted: 8/8/2008)

  82. Why would we want to not count dynamic session or user identifiers as unique pages? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  83. Rating: -2

    Is it possible to group certain pages together so that I can create what I call a section report? The idea being that instead of counting each product page and adding them together, we somehow set up tagging as a group. (posted: 8/8/2008)

  84. Are unique URLs for AdWords tracking similar to tagged URLs? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  85. Rating: +2

    Since _udl.pathname & udl.search functions do not exist in the new ga.js structure, what are the new functions that can be used to replace the functionality? For example (404 Error Page): urchinTracker(”/404.html?page=” + _udl.pathname + _udl.search) (posted: 8/8/2008)

  86. I want to give access to just some of my reports to an advertiser. I can set up a separate profile for them, but how do I limit the reports they can see? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  87. Rating: +1

    Why is the sum of unique visitors different when totaling uniques for smaller segments of time? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  88. Why are my goals not working? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  89. Rating: +0

    How does Google Analytics Event Tracking work? (posted: 8/8/2008)

  90. Rating: +1

    In my Top Content report I see results for /corporate/ and /Corporate/ as separate entries. This happens with a number of virtual directories I have set up. I would like to combine this data in my reports for a more accurate understanding of my website traffic. Is there any way of doing this within GA? (Posted: 06/24/2008)

  91. If I apply a filter to my profile, do you know if this change will only apply to data going forward or does it filter previously gathered data? (Posted: 06/24/2008)

  92. Rating: -1

    I have a very high amount of campaign traffic under the label "not set". I am wondering what this is caused by. (Posted: 06/24/2008)

  93. I have been asked to implement Google Analytics for a site that is getting approximately 20,000 visits per day. Should Google Analytics be able to handle this? Are there any potential pitfalls? (Posted: 06/24/2008)

  94. Can we track additions/removal and abandonments on the shopping cart? Will we be able to identify which product/item pages get visited most? How will these pages be displayed in GA? (example: productID=XXXX or can we name the page in the script? (posted: 8/24/2008)

  95. Category and item pages viewed? We want to be able to track all product/item pages- by name. We do not want productID=XXXX. Can we name the pages in the GA script? (posted 8/24/2008)

  96. If I have multiple domains all forwarded to my main website, would I need to post the urchin.js tracking code to each page for each of the multiple domains that are forwarded to this site? I want to give my sales staff their own domains (which forward to my site), instead of using subdomains. I want to be able to track sales stemming from these forwarded domains. How would I do this? Can Google Analytics handle something like this? (posted: 8/28/2008)

  97. My website is fully Flash. Can I still add the tracking code for Google Analytics in the HTML file and have it track visitors to the homepage? I know it gets more complicated when trying to track events and clickthroughs but I wanted to make sure that the initial step is this simple. (posted: 10/02/2008)

  98. I ran a SiteScan on our site. Why did it only return some of the pages? (posted: 10/02/2008)

  99. Rating: -1

    How do I delete one account UA-xxx from my Analytics Accounts? (posted: 10/02/2008)

  100. Is there a way to track a link that was added to email blast to see how many people click on the specific link? (posted: 10/02/2008)

  101. Rating: -3

    How do I add tracking code to my site that is hosted on Google Pages? (posted: 10/02/2008)

  102. When more than 3 accounts are created at my site, my goals are not registered correctly in Analytics. It normally fails to register one of the new accounts. Why? (posted: 10/02/2008)

  103. We are using AJAX to run our site and are having issues with Google Analytics detecting the other pages since every other page is loaded dynamically into the main area. Do you have any advice or ideas on how to make this work? (posted: 10/02/2008)

  104. If I put a GA script on a page that redirects to another page using javascript, will it show up in the analytics reports? Does the GA tracking code need to be put before the redirect code in the page, or does that not matter? (posted: 10/02/2008)

  105. My Ecommerce transactions in Analytics are lower than my actual transactions. New tracking code is installed correctly and captured transactions are correct. Analytics just misses some. Some days it gets them all, other days it loses half to three quarters. Why? (posted: 10/02/2008)

  106. How can I exclude traffic from more than one IP address if the addresses are not in sequence? Do I need to set up separate filters for each of them? (posted: 10/03/2008)

  107. I noticed a number of clicks from one of my pages to another, but the number of page views on the destination page is much lower than the number of clicks. I was told that the possible reason for this discrepancy was due to robots and indexing spiders. Is this the case? (posted: 10/03/2008)

  108. Rating: +1

    Is it possible in Google Analytics to receive an e-mail notification whenever someone visits my site? (posted: 10/03/2008)

  109. Does the Google Analytics tracking code send information about all your cookies to Google? (posted: 10/03/2008)

  110. Will Google Analytics work on sites that also have other web analytics software? (posted: 10/03/2008)

  111. How do I implement Google Analytics in my Adobe Flex web application? (posted: 10/03/2008)

  112. Rating: -1

    Where do I put the code for Google Analytics in the Apple iWeb app? I have placed it where the template lets me, but it does not work. (posted: 10/03/2008)

  113. Why do the number of page views differ significantly between Google Analytics and the reports in my third-party ad platform? (posted: 10/03/2008)

  114. Rating: +1

    We are tagging our links with the utm_campaign parameter. But when I log into my account and view the stats, I can never find this campaign there. Do I need to add the 3 required variables to the link for it to work properly or will this still work? Also, do I need to add the variables to the code on my site or just in the link? (posted: 10/03/2008)

  115. Rating: -2

    Why is it that in the navigation summary report the page you have "clicked from" is often the same page as the visitor has gone to? I read that this could be clicks on pictures or reloads but I am not convinced. (posted: 10/03/2008)

  116. How do I obtain my Google Analytics account Number? (posted: 12/16/2008)

  117. How can I know if the customers who clicked on our Adwords ads were new or returning visitors? (posted: 12/16/2008)

  118. How can I track only traffic from users who came to my site through a specific landing page? (posted: 12/16/2008)

  119. Rating: -1

    Is Google Analytics able to track a radio-stream, like Shoutcast or Icecast? (posted: 12/16/2008)

  120. How can I get hourly reports from Google Analytics? (posted: 12/16/2008)

  121. Rating: +1

    We are launching a new version of our website. Is there a way to transfer the information from the previous site's Analytics account to a new one? (posted: 12/16/2008)

  122. We run two unique websites, and one Analytics profile. We have a profile for each site, with its own property sub-number UA-xxxxx-1 and UA-xxxxx-2. Does Analytics post the same data to both profiles? (posted: 12/16/2008)

  123. How do I Archive Google Analytics Data? (posted: 12/16/2008)

  124. What are the advantages of the newer "ga.js" tracking code over the old "urchin.js" tracking code? Should I upgrade? (posted: 1/30/2009)

  125. If you could spend 10 minutes looking at a client's Google Analytics and come up with an actionable insight to impress them, what would you look at? (posted: 1/30/2009)

  126. When you select the "Regular Expression" match goal type, are each of the goal funnel steps regular expressions also? (posted: 1/30/2009)

  127. When I select a date range including many months, I have X number of pageviews. When I select one of these months, my total number of pageviews goes down. How is this possible? (posted: 1/30/2009)

  128. Can Google Analytics link search terms used in an organic search with a customer who makes a purchase by tracking the IP address and User Agent (posted: 2/2/2009)?

  129. What are the best practices regarding use of the _setVar() function for user-defined variables? I've heard it can cause issues if used on landing pages. (posted: 3/17/2009)

  130. I am trying to create a report based on specific pages/content on my site. These pages are grouped by ad tag, not by directory or URL. If my ad tag is 12345678, how can I create a report on all pages with this ad tag? (posted: 3/17/2009)

  131. I lost my tracking code. Where can I find it? (posted: 3/17/2009)

  132. When creating an Advanced Segment, the Value drop-down contains 10 items, with no logical order. I know there are more than 10 values. Why is this? (posted: 3/17/2009)

  133. Can Google Analytics show me a list of individual people who have come to my site? (posted: 3/17/2009)

  134. How do I track Flash elements on my pages that already have Google Analytics installed? (posted: 3/17/2009)

  135. How can profiles be used to gain different views of my web traffic? (posted: 5/11/2009)

  136. Is there a method to view Funnel Visualization for just one type of campaign?

  137. I'd like to edit my profile to modify my brand keywords so they are filtered out of my organic keywords, but I can't see how to do that. Am I missing something somewhere?

  138. I have a question about tracking PDF files on my website. I have looked at the Google help page, but am still not quite getting it. The biggest part I am unsure about is, the “(’/PDFs’)” , if i am tracking many different PDFs will they all count as a page view for “(’/PDFs’)”? Where do I place the tracking code? (posted 6/4/2009)

  139. What are the consequences using the pagetracker._getLinkerUrl() and tracking links as outgoing? (posted 6/15/2009)

  140. Why do we keep seeing self referrals under traffic sources? (posted 6/15/2009)