Tip: Google Analytics filters for Facebook referrers
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Douglas ArellanesDouglas Arellanes
    Posts: 97Member
    Hi all,

    Recently I got a request from the Campsite users at Netgazeti (www.netgazeti.ge) to do something about a problem many of you are probably facing as well:

    When a user shares a link on Facebook, Facebook appends certain information on to the URL.

    This means that one article could have several different referrers from several different Facebook users, and each of them will show up in Google Analytics as a separate piece of content.

    This is a ticket I filed today and something the Campsite team are currently working on. It's here: http://dev.sourcefabric.org/browse/CS-2275?page=com.atlassia n.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel

    But I have found a quick and dirty workaround in Google Analytics which might help you out. It involves using filters for your content in Google Analytics.

    Log in to Google Analytics and go to Content -> Top Content, and then find the original URL of your article. In this case, I chose this one:
    http://www.netgazeti.ge/GE/28/News/2640/


    One of the Facebook referrers made the URL look like this:

    http://netgazeti.ge/GE/28/News/2640/?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4cb06fbe13ae6f01,0


    This article had a lot of different Facebook referrers, so I used the filter function at the bottom of the list to group them all together.

    In the filter window at the bottom of the list, I pasted the following information:
    /GE/28/News/2640/


    and then it shows me all the different Facebook referrer pages and counts them together.

    Hopefully this will be of use to you in the meantime before we figure out a proper solution to the problems that the Facebook URLs are giving us there.
    Douglas Arellanes
    Director of Innovation
    Sourcefabric, o.p.s.

    Find a way or make one.
  • 1 Comment sorted by
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Mugur RusMugur Rus
    Posts: 132Member
    I don't see what can we do in Campsite since these URLs are generated
    externally and located on external sites.

    Mugur Rus
    Senior Software Developer, Sourcefabric
    mugur.rus@sourcefabric.org

    Cluj-Napoca, Romania
    +40 (0)720 528408
    Skype: mugur_rus

    http://www.sourcefabric.org
    http://www.twitter.com/Sourcefabric


    On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 6:24 PM, Douglas Arellanes <
    campsite-support@lists.sourcefabric.org> wrote:

    > Hi all,
    >
    > Recently I got a request from the Campsite users at Netgazeti (
    > www.netgazeti.ge) to do something about a problem many of you are probably
    > facing as well:
    >
    > When a user shares a link on Facebook, Facebook appends certain information
    > on to the URL.
    >
    > This means that one article could have several different referrers from
    > several different Facebook users, and each of them will show up in Google
    > Analytics as a separate piece of content.
    >
    > This is a ticket I filed today and something the Campsite team are
    > currently working on. It's here: http://dev.sourcefabric.org/browse/CS-2275?page=com.atlassia
    > n.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel< http://dev.sourcefabric.org/browse/CS-2275?page=com.atlassia n.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel>
    >
    > But I have found a quick and dirty workaround in Google Analytics which
    > might help you out. It involves using filters for your content in Google
    > Analytics.
    >
    > Log in to Google Analytics and go to Content -> Top Content, and then find
    > the original URL of your article. In this case, I chose this one:
    >
    > http://www.netgazeti.ge/GE/28/News/2640/
    >
    >
    >
    > One of the Facebook referrers made the URL look like this:
    >
    > http://netgazeti.ge/GE/28/News/2640/?sms_ss=facebook&at_ xt=4cb06fbe13ae6f01,0
    >
    >
    >
    > This article had a lot of different Facebook referrers, so I used the
    > filter function at the bottom of the list to group them all together.
    >
    > In the filter window at the bottom of the list, I pasted the following
    > information:
    >
    > /GE/28/News/2640/
    >
    >
    >
    > and then it shows me all the different Facebook referrer pages and counts
    > them together.
    >
    > Hopefully this will be of use to you in the meantime before we figure out a
    > proper solution to the problems that the Facebook URLs are giving us there.
    >

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