Google Analytics for forum drilldown

[Dakis]

Is there a way to see the pageviews for everything under a specific forum?

For example if I have a FORUM A, see the total of pageviews for its threadlist, but also for all of the topics in that forum?

 

[digitalpoint]

Not normally... There is nothing in a thread URL that is unique to the forum. You would need to utilize custom variables for it.

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingCustomVariables

 

[ForestForTrees]

For anyone too lazy to figure out which templates to edit (me), a useful proxy would be be going to Content Drilldown and then drilling to /community/forums/. Clearly, our subforums are badly unbalanced:

 

[Dakis]

But this only shows you the pageviews in the thread list in everyone of these forums, right? It doesn't include the topic views.

 

[ForestForTrees]

Yup, though as the above indicates, in our case it was still quite useful.

 

[Dakis]

I seem to recall vbseo had a way to do this but my memory is hazy...

I wish there was some easy way to get this data

 

[ForestForTrees]

Yeah, ideally, it would be built into the core.

I suspect that the template to edit would be google_analytics. To add a custom variable to Google Analytics isn't super hard, AFAIK. You just call something like

_gaq.push(['_setCustomVar',
      1,                   // This custom var is set to slot #1.  Required parameter.
      'Section',           // The top-level name for your online content categories.  Required parameter.
      '{$forum.node_id}',  // Sets the value of "Section" to the title of the node for this thread. Required parameter.
      3                    // Sets the scope to page-level.  Optional parameter.
   ]);

Of course, you'd have to ask what the {$forum.node_id} code would return when a page other than a thread is being viewed. Perhaps you could handle this with a conditional, or perhaps it would be good as it is. @Brogan offers the following code in his excellent tutorial:

<xen:if is="{$forum.node_id} == x">
This content will show in forum x
</xen:if>

For the record, I don't know if the above code would work, but I bet it would be a good starting point.

 

[Digital Doctor]

I seem to recall vbseo had a way to do this but my memory is hazy...
I wish there was some easy way to get this data

It was easy in vBulletin because the URLs had the forum names in them.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/vbulletin-announcements/vbulletin-announcements_aa/4009015-vbulletin-connect-5-1-0-alpha-7-released

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/vbulletin-announcements/vbulletin-announcements_aa

As you can see, Xenforo URLs don't have the subforum names in them

 

[Dakis]

Thanks @ForestForTrees , unfortunately I'm not that skilled with GA to figure it out, I guess it will have to stay as is.

 

[imthebest]

I made a suggestion: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/better-integration-with-google-analytics.66700/

Anyone interested please support it with a like. Thanks!

 

[Carlos]

This is listed under "landing pages." In a normal, stock Analytics/Forum setup.

 

[Dakis]

@Carlos can you please elaborate?

 

[Carlos]

@Carlos can you please elaborate?

Look at image, please.



I'm not using any modification on this. Landing pages, and Trackback are two sources that may be relevant to what you're asking. Trackback, as you recall... is popular in Wordpress, so whatever site is linking to your content... you'll know.. where... your content is being linked from..

 

[Dakis]

What does wordpress or trackback have to do with this discussion? Check the request on the first post again, I think you're talking about something entirely different here.

 

[Carlos]

What does wordpress or trackback have to do with this discussion? Check the request on the first post again, I think you're talking about something entirely different here.

No, I'm not, I'm just saying that both landing pages (what you're asking for), and Trackback can tell you where your most popular content is and where it came from.

They're closely correlated and entwined.

As for wordpress, I'm just saying, it's the same idea - and google made a bit more options there, too.

 

[Dakis]

Please read the first post, your responses are not related to the thread.

 

[Markos]

It was easy in vBulletin because the URLs had the forum names in them.



http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/vbulletin-announcements/vbulletin-announcements_aa

As you can see, Xenforo URLs don't have the subforum names in them

View attachment 64884

I never understood why Xenforo doesn't implement the url system of VB/IPB etc., the url system used by XF is very confusing...for the reasons posted here.

IMHO without this url structure is very difficult to have features like this....

Anyway, i'm agree that will be a very useful feature. +1!

 

[Digital Doctor]

vBulletin

I wouldn't wish that software on anyone.