[Web4lib] Google Analytics - Tracking Installed

[Kozlowski,Brendon]

Just be careful when using the EventTracking with Google Analytics.  There seem to be some irregularities with it.  I've blogged about my own personal attempt in using it:
 
http://life.mysiteonline.org/archives/174-Using-jQuery-and-Google-Analytics-to-track-Outbound-Clicks.html <http://life.mysiteonline.org/archives/174-Using-jQuery-and-Google-Analytics-to-track-Outbound-Clicks.html> 
 
The trouble was only partially documented by me in a comment to my own article.  For some reason, the event was never caught.  I've posted on the Google FAQ forum (not sure why they don't use Google Groups) for Analytics about the issue - after attempting all of the possible fixes that others have found - and never received a reply.
 
Page tracking worked just fine, so you could essentially set the actionable URL path to /action/...description_of_action... or /outbound/...URL... but this has the undesireable result of increasing your overall visits/traffic reports; that was something I did not want to do, and still don't.
 
I'm honestly considering moving to a comparable product to Google Analytics if I ever get back to this, or deem it important enough to warrant it.  There are a few close competitors that are also free, but at the moment they escape me.  (Sorry.)
 
 
 
Brendon Kozlowski
Web Administrator
Saratoga Springs Public Library
49 Henry Street
Saratoga Springs, NY, 12866
[518] 584-7860 x217

________________________________

From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Maccabee Levine
Sent: Wed 10/28/2009 1:06 PM
To: Tim Spalding
Cc: Florence Tang; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Google Analytics - Tracking Installed



We are investigating this at the moment as well.  The route we're taking
initially is to use GA's "event tracking" API, which allows much more
fine-grained reporting of what the user did than simply 'loaded X
page'.  For example, we are hoping to use the "label" parameter to
quantitatively analyze which drop-down options are actually used on our
'advanced' search screen, and whether there are differences in the
searching practices of in-library vs. external users.  I have not seen
any guide on implementing GA's event tracking for a library, however an
overview of the API itself here:
http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/eventTrackerOverview.html


Maccabee

On 10/27/2009 8:31 PM, Tim Spalding wrote:
> Related question: What's the state of the art of using Google
> Analytics to measure *catalog* (OPAC) usage? It would be, I think,
> quite tricky to have it track things intelligently-to get at the sort
> of pages hit, for example. Has anyone done this successfully, or
> published a guide to it?
>
> Best,
> Tim
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>
>  

--
Maccabee Levine
Emerging Technologies Librarian
Polk Library 110
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Oshkosh, WI 54901
920-424-7332




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