Better Analytics 3.1.1

[Stuart Wright]

What concerns me is that the definition of a bounce is not, as I understand it, ambiguous. Someone either goes from the landing page to another page on your site or they don't. It's a bounce or it isn't.
I read the above article which explains that the 'adjusted bounce rate' tries to differentiate between people who immediately back way from your site and those who found something useful in it. But this, to me blurs the definition if bounces.
Don't get me wrong, I'd much prefer a lower bounce rate. But when it can take 20 seconds or more for some of our pages to load, 15 seconds seems to me to be cheating.
It feels like we're fudging the statistics.
And I'm only interested in getting 100% authentic statistics from Google Analytics.

 

[Rob]

Stuart, could you not increase the timeout to account for page load time? For instance, I'd say that anyone still on the site 30 seconds later should not be included in bounce data. Anyway, the code triggers the event "15 seconds", after 15 seconds. You can change the event name and the timing of it so you could pull those stats of analytics. I'm pretty sure you can filter by event so you'd be able to provide more accurate bounce stats if *some* advertisers say or are not convinced by the xx second rule.
The data is still there and I'm sure it's just a case of putting a report together. You could give them adjusted figures to begin with and non adjusted data for those who want it.

@digitalpoint, is it possible to record "usergroup names" as a custom dimension, much like you do for "forum"?

 

[digitalpoint]

The way the plugin works, it would be 15 seconds *after* the page was loaded. But that's neither here or there is you are only interested in measuring the number of page views a user made regardless of time.

Caveats

While site-wide bounce rate can be a useful metric for sites with well-defined conversion steps requiring multiple page views, it may be of questionable value for sites where visitors are likely to find what they are looking for on the entry page. This type of behavior is common on web portals and referential content sites.[5] For example, a visitor looking for the definition of a particular word may enter an online dictionary site on that word's definition page. Similarly, a visitor who wants to read about a specific news story may enter a news site on an article written for that story. These example entry pages could have a bounce rate above 80% (thereby increasing the site-wide average), however they may still be considered successful.

Often times forums are considered reference sites (where users find what they are looking for with a single page view).

Either way, it's not hard to disable and I'm not going to force someone to measure bounce rate one way vs. another way. I'll just add a setting for it in the next version.

For *me*, adjusted bounce rate is much more useful because I care about measuring users who stay on the site, not the number of pages they viewed. If I want to know that, there's already the Page Depth report in Google Analytics for that.

 

[digitalpoint]

@digitalpoint, is it possible to record "usergroup names" as a custom dimension, much like you do for "forum"?

The problem with that is users can have infinite number of usergroups. You could measure the "primary" usergroup I suppose in theory, but not sure there's a whole lot of value in that since XenForo's whole usergroup permission system is designed around having primary user groups be mostly the same for all users and then having secondary user groups applied for special permissions.

 

[Rob]

Yeah, I thought of pipe seperating them. How about the value of a custom field?

It would be awesome if you could choose a custom profile field and assign it individually to a dimension... it would be super awesome if you could do that for multiple custom fields

 

[Stuart Wright]

it would be 15 seconds *after* the page was loaded

That makes me feel better. Next step is to work on activities to get them to click an internal link.

 

[digitalpoint]

Yeah, I thought of pipe seperating them. How about the value of a custom field?

It would be awesome if you could choose a custom profile field and assign it individually to a dimension... it would be super awesome if you could do that for multiple custom fields

Pipe separating them really would be of very little value... because you would have something like "Registered User|Premium User" not grouped with Registered Users *or* Premium Users... there really isn't going to be a good way to do it unless Google Analytics starts allowing multiple individual values for a single dimension.

 

[Chad]

Assuming your site is setup like default XF it would be the same as mine...

View attachment 96590

If you do Facebook registrations, make one for: "/register/facebook/register" not sure on other types of registrations because I don't use them.

I'm sorry but I'm just confused here. See attached. This is what I see in Google Analytics, unless I'm missing something.

Basically, what I'm looking to do is the following:
1. Track registrations via AdWords
2. Track registrations via Google Search (organic)

Side note, do I still need to include the tracking code inside register_process template or not?

Thanks.

 

[digitalpoint]

Don't know what that is, but Goal definitions are under Admin/settings and look more like this:

 

[Chad]

Ok found it thanks. My sign up button takes me to this page.

http://www.talkjesus.com/index.php?register

It's not /register/register like yours.

PS: do I still need to include the tracking code inside register_process template?

 

[TickTackk]

Ok found it thanks. My sign up button takes me to this page.

http://www.talkjesus.com/index.php?register

It's not /register/register like yours.

The site will go to register/register only when someone choose to register using the top pop-up link. Your link is valid as well. You should enable friendly link options in acp to get rid of the index.php thingy from url.

 

[Chad]

The site will go to register/register only when someone choose to register using the top pop-up link. Your link is valid as well. You should enable friendly link options in acp to get rid of the index.php thingy from url.

Ok so "begins with" should simply be "register"?

I have Friendly URLs enabled. See attached. Not sure why it shows index.php. How can I remove that, without affecting my redirects from previous vBulletin install in htaccess?

My current htaccss is:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^[^/]+/([0-9]+)-[^\.]+\.html$ /index.php?threads/$1/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.talkjesus\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.talkjesus.com/$1 [R=301,L]
   
#    Mod_security can interfere with uploading of content such as attachments. If you
#    cannot attach files, remove the "#" from the lines below.
#<IfModule mod_security.c>
#    SecFilterEngine Off
#    SecFilterScanPOST Off
#</IfModule>

ErrorDocument 401 default
ErrorDocument 403 default
ErrorDocument 404 default
ErrorDocument 500 default

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On

    #    If you are having problems with the rewrite rules, remove the "#" from the
    #    line that begins "RewriteBase" below. You will also have to change the path
    #    of the rewrite to reflect the path to your XenForo installation.
    #RewriteBase /

    #    This line may be needed to enable WebDAV editing with PHP as a CGI.
    #RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
    RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
    RewriteRule ^(data/|js/|styles/|install/|favicon\.ico|crossdomain\.xml|robots\.txt) - [NC,L]
    RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]
</IfModule>

 

[TickTackk]

Ok so "begins with" should simply be "register"?

Yep.

I have Friendly URLs enabled. See attached. Not sure why it shows index.php. How can I remove that, without affecting my redirects from previous vBulletin install in htaccess?

Its the template issue in your skin. Just find "index.php?" and remove it. If you're scared of screwing something up you can inbox me login credentials and I can do it for you.

 

[Chad]

Thanks for your help. Tried that. The only indication of index.php? in search template result was editor template.

 

[TickTackk]

It is UIX or Welcome Message so check inside it maybe?

 

[Chad]

Perfect found that, thanks!

What about the template question? Do I still need to include the tracking code inside register_process template to properly track registered conversions from Adwords & Analytics in general?

 

[TickTackk]

I'm not sure where the exact code needs to be applied for tracking registered conversions. But if its a simple line of code then inside google_analytics template
Find:

var _gaq = [['_setAccount', '{$xenOptions.googleAnalyticsWebPropertyId}'], ['_trackPageview']];

Replace with:

var _gaq = [['_setAccount', '{$xenOptions.googleAnalyticsWebPropertyId}'], ['_trackPageview']];
<xen:if is="{$contentTemplate} == 'register_process'">
    your code here
</xen:if>

 

[Chad]

Thanks I'll try that

 

[Chad]

I just realized something. I already have my Google Analytics ID in the Xenforo Google Integration settings. Would that be sufficient for the conversion to pick up?

 

[TickTackk]

I have no idea about that, sorry.