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You are here: Home / Common Problems / Google Analytics Configuration Mistake #3: Third Party Domains

Google Analytics Configuration Mistake #3: Third Party Domains

Posted: September 26, 2006 61 Comments

One of Google Analytics’ great features is that it can track visitors across multiple domains. This is especially handy for all those folks using a third party shopping cart. Getting GA configured correctly to work with a third party domain is not overly complicated but there can be some issues.

Here’s my list of the top mistakes made when working with a third party domain:

1. Missing GA tracking code

This is a simple step that many people forget. Make sure that you add the GA tracking code to all the pages on both domains. If the code is missing then the visitor will not be tracked. If the third party site does not allow you to add JavaScript to the pages then you may be out of luck.

Remember, the JavaScript code snippet needs to be modified slightly to look like this:




Don’t forget to replace “UA-XXXX-X” with your GA account number.

2. Missing __utmLinker() or __utmLinkPost()

The technology that GA uses to track visitors between multiple domains depends on two JavaScript functions: __utmLinker() and __utmLinkPost(). Both functions are included in the urchin.js tracking code. These functions transfer the GA tracking cookies from one domain to another via the URL. This is vital to identifying unique visitors and connecting which marketing activities lead to conversions.

Why do we need to transfer cookies between domains? Well, that’s a bit complicated and pretty technical. Think of it this way. Each visitor has their own set of cookies. For security reasons, we need a mechanism to transfer the cookies from one domain to the other. __utmLinker() and __utmLinkPost() are the mechanisms we use to transfer the cookies from one domain to another.

If you move visitors from one domain to another using regular links then you need to modify those links with the __utmLinker() function. Here’s an example:






If you move visitors between domains using a form, then you need to modify said form using __utmLinkPost(), like this:

How do you know if you’ve done it right? Go to your site and click on a link or form that drives the visitor from your site to the third party site. When you arrive on the third party site look at the URL in your browser’s location bar. You should see information like this:


http://cutroni.wpengine.com/index.htm?
__utma=var1&__utmb=var2&__utmc=var3&__utmv=var4&utmz=var5&__utmk=1232

The query string variables are the actual tracking cookies from the original domain. __utmLinker or __utmLinkPost placed them in the URL. When the visitor arrives on the third party site the urchin.js JavaScript will pluck them from the URL and create a set of cookies for the third party domain using the values from the URL.

3. Incompatible Architectures

If you’re banging your head against the monitor trying to figure out why GA is not working with a third party domain it could be that the third party site is not compatible with Google Analytics. This is very common.

First, the third party provider must let you add JavaScript to your pages. We discussed this above. No JavaScript tracking code, no visitor tracking.

Second, make sure the third party site lets you pass data to their site via the URL. Remember, that’s how __utmLinker() and __utmLinkPost() work. I’ve come across many third party sites that strip out query string variables which breaks the GA tracking.

To determine if the third party site is stripping out the query string variables use the method I described above. Go to your site and click on a link or form that drives the visitor from your site to the third party site. When you arrive on the third party site look at the URL in your browser’s location bar. You should see information like this:


http://cutroni.wpengine.com/index.htm?
__utma=var1&__utmb=var2&__utmc=var3&__utmv=var4&utmz=var5&__utmk=1232

The query string variables above (bolded) are the actual tracking cookies from the original domain.

If the third party provider’s architecture does not appear to be compatible with GA give them a call. Sometimes they’re willing to change. I’ve actually worked with quite a few vendors to help make their systems GA compatible.

Filed Under: Common Problems, Tracking Tagged With: google-analytics, Tips

Comments

  1. Josh says

    October 10, 2006 at 6:12 pm

    I’m wondering what the effect of using the JS href would be on SEO? Any idea how a Google bot would make the jump through that type of link? Thanks very much for these tutorials, great stuff. My forehead and keyboard both thank you.

    Reply
  2. Justin says

    October 12, 2006 at 10:03 am

    Hey Josh,

    Great question. I’m not 100% sure how the googlebot would respond. I do know that the noscript tag is there so people with JavaScript disabled can still surf the site. As most spiders are not JavaScript enabled I’m guessing that they would take advantage of this as well.

    Justin

    Reply
  3. Julien says

    October 12, 2006 at 12:55 pm

    Hi Justin, thank you you for this great post. My concern is pretty similar to the one above. I’m not a javascript expert, but I was wondering if we could trigger the utmLinker function in a more SEO friendly way, like

    href=”http://www.example.com/” onclick=”javascript:__utmLinker(this)”

    or something (altought I know this doesn’t work…)?

    Thanks you

    Reply
  4. Justin says

    October 15, 2006 at 1:42 pm

    Hi Julien,

    I have my doubts that your example will work. But to be sure I need to run a test. The reason is that many web browsers may still pass the user on to the URL in the HREF attribute even though there is a function reference in the onClick event. If the browser uses the value in the HREF then the cookies will be left behind.

    Is there an HTML expert out there? If so, maybe they can chime in before I run my test.

    Justin

    Reply
  5. Joe says

    April 12, 2007 at 9:55 am

    Hi Justin, Thanks for the great posts. Here is my question. I have an application that is served up by many domains (www.mydomain.com, http://www.anotherdomain.com, etc.). I track all visits using my account (www.mydomain.com) and my customers track their individual visits using their own account (www.anotherdomain.com). We programmatically insert the java script for them. My question is will my tracking work if my account is setup using http://www.mydomain.com even when pages are being served up using http://www.anotherdomain.com?

    Reply
  6. Justin says

    April 13, 2007 at 6:12 am

    Hi Joe,

    Without knowing al the details it’s tough to say. But, from a high level, I think you’re ok.

    GA is completely client side. So, if the page renders with the correct JS snippet then the page will be tracked correctly. As long as the page has the correct GA tracking number.

    Justin

    Reply
  7. Andreas says

    May 7, 2007 at 4:10 pm

    Hi,

    I’m wondering how to pass the GA cookies via Header-Redirection. I’m pretty sure I cannot use the given utmLinker function as it should be, so I’d really appreciate some help.

    My customer’s script checks a certain parameter given via URL and redirects to a different ssl url if necessary. So I cannot combine the HTML-Link with the utmLinker function.

    Andreas

    Reply
  8. Justin says

    May 13, 2007 at 6:38 am

    Hi Andreas,

    The problem with passing he tracking cookies using a method other than __utmLinker() or __utmLinkPost() is creating the checksum. When __utmLinker() and __utmLinkPost() execute they create a check sum that is attached to the destination URL. If the checksum in the UL does not match the checksum that is computed when the visitor arrives on the destination page, then GA will set new cookies.

    Unfortunately using a header redirect will not calculate the checksum value.

    Hope that helps…

    Justin

    Reply
  9. Randy says

    June 16, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    This is nuts.

    Google’s analytics fall WAY SHORT in this department.

    For them to expect users to change all links in order for the multi-domain tracking to work is INSANE.

    Reply
  10. Justin says

    June 19, 2007 at 9:50 am

    Hi Randy,

    Multi domain tracking is a challenge. The problem is that Google Analytics uses first party cookies. Therefore, there must be some mechanism to pass cookie values from one domain to another so that the cookies remain first party cookies. I don’t know any other way to pass the data.

    One solution is to create a DOM script that automatically calls the utmLinker() function when the links are clicked on.

    There may be other mechanisms for passing cookies between domains, but I don’t know any others.

    Thanks for the feedback!

    Justin

    Reply
  11. June Li says

    June 27, 2007 at 9:57 am

    Hi Justin,
    Re tracking across multiple domains:
    After the scripts have been implemented and the intersite links revised, when clicking on the link from seconddomain.com to firstdomain.com, have you run into the problem where there’s an “error on page” in IE but it works without any problem in Firefox and Safari?
    We’ve checked our JavaScript syntax between sites and can’t see any IE-related eccentricities.
    Thanks,
    June

    Reply
  12. Justin says

    June 27, 2007 at 9:59 pm

    Hi June,

    I have not run into that problem before. The only thing that comes to mind is that there may be an utmLinker() call before the urchin.js file is loaded into the browser.

    Is it working when a visitor clicks from firstdomain.com to seconddomain.com?

    Justin

    Reply
  13. June Li says

    June 28, 2007 at 5:10 am

    Hi Justin,
    utmLinker() is after urchin.js. It’s working/tracking in Firefox and Safari.
    Will dig further and share what we find.
    Thanks,
    June

    Reply
  14. ronaleee says

    September 9, 2007 at 9:26 am

    Hi first of great post…
    my question is this however.
    if i past my GA code like so

    _uacct = “UA-XXXXXX-X”;
    urchinTracker();

    will i still be able to track visits to a 3 party site ?

    Reply
  15. Justin says

    September 10, 2007 at 8:19 am

    Hi ronaleee,

    Adding the tracking code to the pages on both sites is just the first step in tracking across multiple domains.

    You also need to modify the links or forms that direct a visitor from one domain to another. This post should provide all the information that you need to get things set up correctly. But, if you need more information check the Google Analytics support section here:

    Tracking 3rd party domains

    Hope that helps,

    Justin

    Reply
  16. June says

    September 11, 2007 at 9:32 am

    Hi Justin,

    Have you been able to execute the link level javascript between multiple domains successfully where the “sending” domain content is part of a wordpress blog?

    Thanks,
    June

    Reply
  17. Dwayne says

    September 13, 2007 at 3:33 pm

    Hi,
    Trying to come up with a way to visitors between sites with separate GA profiles so they do not just show up as a referral from the other site. Can you use the utmlinker or utmpost to pass visitors tracking data from 1 site to the other and maintain their original entry (orgainc,ppc,etc.) instead of just a referral from the other site.

    Thanks,
    Dwayne

    Reply
  18. Brian says

    September 13, 2007 at 8:09 pm

    I’m using code behind the scenes to store the values of all the variables (utma, utmb, utmc, utmd, utmv, utmz, and utmk) as session variables. I use the uhash function to get utmk. I’m pretty sure I got that hash value correct.
    Then when the first domain redirects to the second domain, it adds “?__utma=xxx&__utmb=xxx&utmc=xxx&__utmz=xxx&__utmk=xxxxxxxx”. But new cookie values still seem to be getting set.
    It would be so much easier if GA just allowed us to “preset” a,b,c,d,v,z in the page.

    Reply
  19. Justin says

    September 13, 2007 at 8:57 pm

    Hi Brian,

    I’ve been trying for a long time to manually calculate utmk and pass it to a third party site. It has never worked.

    One thing I noticed is that you listed a utmd cookie. To the best of my knowledge there is no utmd. :) That may be your problem. Also make sure you’re using the correct value for utmx even if you’re not using optimizer.

    I think what would be very useful would be a function to create a formatted URL that has all the cookies, their values and any checksums.

    Justin

    Reply
  20. Justin says

    September 13, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    Hi Dwayne,

    Yes, utmLinker() and utmLinkPost() are used to pass the tracking cookies from one site to another. By passing the tracking cookies from one domain to another the original source of the visitor’s session will be retained.

    Justin

    Reply
  21. Dwayne says

    September 14, 2007 at 8:38 am

    Hi Justin,

    Thanks for the help on tracking accross multiple domains. I just want to verify 1 more item when tracking accross the 2 domains (using separate profiles) with the utmlink or utmpost do I still need to modify the original code on both sites to add the _udn=”none”;
    _ulink=1; lines of code?

    Thanks again,
    Dwayne

    Reply
  22. Justin says

    September 17, 2007 at 9:18 am

    Hi Dwayne,

    Yup, you’re correct.

    Justin

    Reply
  23. ronaleee says

    September 25, 2007 at 9:06 am

    ok forgive my ignores but after all of the above is done.
    how can i see the goal conversion on my analytics account? do i have to modify it as well?
    please help me nothing i have done works..

    p.s great post easy to read and informative

    Reply
  24. Justin says

    September 26, 2007 at 8:32 am

    Ronaleee,

    To track conversions you need to set up Goals. Check this post for more information about how GA goals work and how you can set them up.

    http://www.epikone.com/blog/2007/07/07/google-analytics-goals/

    Good luck,

    Justin

    Reply
  25. Ethan says

    November 15, 2007 at 7:46 pm

    Hi Justin,

    Say there are 2 domains A and B, and when a visitor clicks the order link on A, he is transferred to page B1 (order page) on domain B to place his order.

    I have my GA code and utmLinker on domain A, however I can only place my GA code on page B2 (the thank you page) on B.

    So a visitor would go from A (with GA code + utmlinker) to page B1 (no GA code) to page B2 (with GA code).

    Would the tracking still work in this case? Or does the GA code have to be on all pages in domain B?

    Thanks very much for your time!
    Ethan

    Reply
  26. Nathaniel Stott says

    November 16, 2007 at 9:16 am

    Hi Justin,

    How would you suggest transfering cookies between 2 domains using frames. We want to track a page with a framed formulier (external) and back to the original site.

    GA codes have been placed on both pages, but we seem to be missing the cookie details ie how to transfer as we are not dealing with a straight link or form here.

    Thanks.

    Nathaniel Stott

    Reply
  27. Oliver says

    November 17, 2007 at 6:17 am

    Hello,

    I’d like to keep a log of user events on my website. I want to use the ID that urchin chooses for the user since it’s probably the most accurate way of identifying the same user between events.

    It seems like __utmb records this identifier but I can’t find a definition for the purposes of the __utmX cookies anywhere.

    Can you give me any advice?

    thanks, Oliver

    Reply
  28. Justin says

    November 17, 2007 at 4:35 pm

    Hey Ethan,

    Unfortunately you’re out of luck. While you will be able to track referrals, you will not be able to connect those referrals to the originating camapign information. The reason is that when the visitor clicks from B1 to B2 GA will create a set of tracking cookies for the B domain. Those cookies will not contain the original campaign info from site A because utmLinker was not used to pass the info from A to B2.

    Sorry about that.

    Thanks for reading and thanks for the question.

    Justin

    Reply
  29. Justin says

    November 17, 2007 at 4:44 pm

    Hi Nathaniel,

    Trasfering the cookies between frames is really hard and there is no solution yet. The problem is that utmLinker and utmLinkPost attach the cookie values to the destination URL and then do a redirect. Obviously, with a frame, the SRC value is already set when the page is rendering in the browser.

    I’ve been trying to work on a solution with a friend at Google but I have not getting it to work. If i do figure somethin out I’ll post it here.

    Justin

    Reply
  30. Justin says

    November 17, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    Hi Oliver,

    The best place to find an explanation of the UTM tracking cookies is in GA Short Cut. While it is GA focused, the tracking cookies are the same for Urchin.

    Thanks for the question,

    Justin

    Reply
  31. Jenny says

    November 22, 2007 at 1:09 pm

    If the 3rd party page already has their own urchintracker script (with their own acct #), and we also put our own urchintracker script in the same page (probably above theirs, with our own acct #), would analytics still work for both of us? Would the transferred cookie info be picked up by our own script?

    Reply
  32. Justin says

    November 26, 2007 at 9:13 am

    Jenny,

    It is possible to track traffic in two different GA accounts, however the data can become mangled. The problem is that both sets of code share the same tracking code.

    To track traffic in two accounts make sure to ‘reset’ the GA tracking code by adding the following line between the two sets of tracking code:

    _uff=1;

    Hope that helps,

    Justin

    Reply
  33. gaffe says

    November 27, 2007 at 12:28 am

    Hi,

    I want to post the link of my homepage on my orkut profile and want to track web-traffic from my orkut profile to my homepage. I already have an account for my homepage in Google analytics. Is there a way to track? pls. guide

    thanks,
    gaffe

    Reply
  34. Justin Cutroni says

    December 2, 2007 at 11:20 pm

    Hi Gaffe,

    You should be able to see Orkut as a referrer to your website already. If you need more specific information then I would tag the link on your Orkut homepage as you would a marketing campaign.

    You can learn more about link tagging in this series of posts.

    Thanks for reading,

    Justin

    Reply
  35. jcc says

    December 7, 2007 at 12:19 am

    silly question… does the GA uacct code have to be the same for domain1.com and domain2.com?

    Reply
  36. Justin Cutroni says

    December 7, 2007 at 10:30 pm

    Hi JCC,

    No such thing as a silly question. The answer is yes, the account numbers need to be the same on both sites.

    Justin

    Reply
  37. David Edwards says

    December 11, 2007 at 8:51 am

    I’ve been playing around with Google Analytics and getting utmlinker() values to survive a HTTP redirect on the receiving page. It was causing me problems at first, but found some help on the GA newsgroup which may be of use to others:

    http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help-tracking/browse_thread/thread/f913cf551aafab89/

    Dave

    Reply
  38. Justin Cutroni says

    December 11, 2007 at 9:11 am

    Hi David,

    Thanks for posting that link. Understanding the utmk checksum is really important if you’re trying to get around a redirect without using utmLInker. We’ve been using a couple of functions to compute the hash internally and have had some success. Hopefully that post solved your problem.

    Thanks again,

    Justin

    Reply
  39. Aleksa says

    January 2, 2008 at 12:22 pm

    Hi,

    I faced a problem that no one on the net seems to have as I looked through thousands of posts.

    I changed GA code (added two lines)
    I added UTM to the link as you suggest in your post (and as Google suggests), but…

    When I upload the site the link is unclickable. What I mean is you can see “buy now” words and you can see that it is a link, but when you click on it nothing happens (but you can open it in a new tab/window through the right click).

    Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

    Reply
  40. Justin Cutroni says

    January 11, 2008 at 11:28 am

    Hi Aleksa,

    Make sure that the GATC, the main tracking code, is at the top of your HTML and not at the bottom. My guess is that the utmLInker or utmLinkPost functions are missing because the urchin.js script has not loaded into the browser when the visitor clicks on the link.

    You may also want to check for any JS errors on the page.

    Good luck and thanks for reading!

    Justin

    Reply
  41. Selene says

    January 18, 2008 at 10:02 am

    I am trying to wrap the utmLinker and utmLinkPost functions around existing forms which have their own onSubmit functions. There’s a 2nd parameter to utmLinker and utmLinkPost called ‘h’ that is undocumented but seems to be the return value of an existing onSubmit function, before adding your own. I can’t imagine what else it might be. Here is an example:

    In this case, testfcn(this) would be the function I originally wanted to call before implementing utmLinkPost(). This implementation causes the return value of testfcn() to be passed in to utmLinkPost as true/false (as the ‘h’ param, I’m guessing). I just don’t understand the logic, then, of how it’s being checked against ‘ih’ which indicates the occurrence of a ‘#’ fragment in the action link.

    Any thoughts? Is my assumption correct, and how is ‘h’ being used in conjunction with ‘ih’? Thanks,

    Selene

    Reply
  42. Justin Cutroni says

    January 20, 2008 at 9:05 am

    Selene,

    The problem with utmLinkPost() is that it performs a redirect after manipulating the form action. I would try calling the utmLinker() after your function. Obviously the interplay of the two functions really depends on the logic in your function. I’m pretty sure you’ll need to tweak your function to make this all work.

    Hope that helps,

    Justin

    Reply
  43. Selene says

    January 22, 2008 at 11:25 am

    I tried this, but it seems that onSubmit only takes one function (I have read this on other forums as well). If I separate the functions and call them in sequence, only the first one (my function) is called but the 2nd one is not.

    Also, in your response, did you mean to call utmLinkPost() after my function, or utmLinker()? I am working with a form, so I thought that the former (sorry for the inadvertent pun) was appropriate, and the latter was only for links.

    S.

    Reply
  44. Adam Engst says

    February 20, 2008 at 10:21 am

    Hi Justin,

    With the recent change from urchin.ja to ga.js, I have a few questions:

    * Honestly, I don’t remember why I’m doing this, but I seem to be using your Javascript wrapper on the Buy links from my site to my cart on another site. It worked fine in urchin.js. But now that I read the GA docs, they just recommend using this link format below. Why do you wrap the whole thing in a script and have a separate noscript version?

    Purchase Now

    * I need to switch, I think, to ga.js, because my cart host is using that now on the receipt page to track transactions. Is there any reason to to modify your Javascript wrapper so it does pageTracker._link instead of __utmLinker? Or would it make more sense to just use what GA suggests, namely:

    Purchase Now

    Thanks!

    cheers… -Adam

    Reply
  45. Adam Engst says

    February 20, 2008 at 10:23 am

    Hi Justin,

    With the recent change from urchin.ja to ga.js, I have a few questions:

    * Honestly, I don’t remember why I’m doing this, but I seem to be using your Javascript wrapper on the Buy links from my site to my cart on another site. It worked fine in urchin.js. But now that I read the GA docs, they just recommend using this link format below. Why do you wrap the whole thing in a script and have a separate noscript version?

    a href=” https://www.securecart.com/?store=parameters” onclick=”__utmLinker(this.href); return false;”>Purchase Now /a

    * I need to switch, I think, to ga.js, because my cart host is using that now on the receipt page to track transactions. Is there any reason to to modify your Javascript wrapper so it does pageTracker._link instead of __utmLinker? Or would it make more sense to just use what GA suggests, namely:

    a href=” https://www.securecart.com/?store=parameters” onclick=”pageTracker._link(this.href); return false;”>Purchase Now /a

    Thanks!

    cheers… -Adam (reposting so my links appear as text)

    Reply
  46. Justin Cutroni says

    June 25, 2008 at 7:11 am

    Hi Adam,

    If you’re using a third party shopping cart make sure that you’re using the same tracking code that your cart provider is using. If they’re using urchin.js make sure you are using urchin.js.

    The reason is that the cookies for urchin.js are slightly different than the cookies on ga.js, this can cause problems with the cross domain tracking.

    Re: your question about __utmLinker() and pageTracker._link(), each is specific to a different version of the tracking code. If you’re using urchin.js make sure you use the __utmLinker() function. If you’re using ga.js make sure you’re using pageTracker._link().

    Justin

    Reply
  47. Jeanne Stiles says

    August 2, 2008 at 7:33 pm

    I am trying to delete this site from my analytics account but don’t know how. I deleted it but it is still there.
    The tracking code is “UA5176365-1”
    Can you help me with this or direct me to someone who can help me?

    Reply
  48. Justin Cutroni says

    August 3, 2008 at 9:46 pm

    Hi Jeanne,

    I’m nt exactly sure what you’re asking. You should be able to delete any profile from your account except for the original profile. You can’t have a GA account without any profiles.

    If you want to stop tracking a site just remove the code from the site.

    Hope that helps and thanks for the question,

    Justin

    Reply
  49. JJ says

    September 30, 2008 at 11:59 am

    Hi Justin – I heard that the tracking between sites is no longer allowed (I think it had to do with privacy concerns). If this is incorrect is adding the new GA.js code to the third party site all that is required, or is there more to it?

    Let me know, thanks.

    Reply
  50. Justin Cutroni says

    October 1, 2008 at 9:53 pm

    Hi JJ-

    It is possible to use GA to track visitors from one domain to another. To implement cross domain tracking you need to add a modified version of the tracking code to each site AND you need to modify the forms and links that point from one domain to the other.

    Check the GA help section for amore info about the GA.JS implementation.

    Thanks for the question,

    Justin

    Reply
  51. bB says

    October 22, 2008 at 8:27 am

    I am really banging my head against a brick wall on this one.. perhaps someone here can help.

    I have a form posting to a 3rd party site and have followed the configuration instructions to track across domains… the URL that the form posts to on the 3rd party domain contains all the __utma, __utmb…__utmz variables, but the __utma and __utmz cookies that get set are different — the __utmz cookie that gets set on the third party site indicates that I am being referred by my main website.

    Any ideas where I should start looking to sort this?

    Reply
  52. Justin Cutroni says

    October 23, 2008 at 7:03 pm

    Hi bB,

    If you can see the cookies in the URL when you land on the new site then things should work. I would check to make sure that both sites are using the same version of the tracking code. You could run into trouble if one site is using urchin.js and ga.js.

    Hope that helps,

    Justin

    Reply
  53. Padma says

    January 13, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    Hi

    I was just wondering if anybody knows anything about posting data on google analytics without using javascripts. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks a lot for your time.

    Padma.

    Reply
  54. Justin Cutroni says

    February 11, 2009 at 4:06 pm

    Hi Padma,

    Right now the only way to get data into GA is via the JS code. So you need to execute JS to send data to Google.

    If you figure out away to get JS to execute at the sever level let me know!

    Justin

    Reply
  55. David says

    March 23, 2009 at 8:56 pm

    I’m looking at moving my blogspot blog to my own domain.

    e.g.: myblog.blogspot.com -> blog.myblog.com

    Blogspot automatically redirects all requests for the old domain to the new one, so all traffic will come from the one domain. I’d like to keep my old stats after the move.

    Do I still need to make changes to the GA tracking code (domain name to “none” and turning on linker)? Or will the old code still work even though it is being called from a different domain? (I understand the returning visitors etc. will be out because the cookie will change.)

    Regards,
    David

    Reply
  56. Justin Cutroni says

    April 16, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    David,

    No need to change anything. I believe that Blogger uses a 301 redirect, which is what you want.

    Thanks for the question,

    Justin

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Unofficial Google Analytics Blog says:
    September 26, 2006 at 1:50 pm

    Tracking Multiple Domains

    Justin Cutroni has yet another great series of articles over at his blog, all about common Google Analytics configuration mistakes. His most recent post discusses third party domains, and getting Google Analytics to track across them. As usual, it’s w…

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  2. this just in » Google Analytics: How to Tell When Something is Wrong says:
    October 12, 2006 at 10:29 pm

    […] You can read the official Google Analytics support instructions or read my post about third party domains. […]

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  3. Analytics Talk » Blog Archive » Top 5 Google Analytics Resolutions for 2007 says:
    February 1, 2008 at 5:29 am

    […] Google Analytics Configuration Mistake #1: Missing Default Page Google Analytics Configuration Mistake #2: Query String Variables Google Analytics Configuration Mistake #3: Third Party Domains […]

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  4. Analytics Talk » Blog Archive » “Enterprise” Google Analytics says:
    August 26, 2008 at 9:35 am

    […] Now, I know GA has a cross domain tracking feature. But what happens if an enterprise wants to know the unique visitor count across 50 web properties? Installing cross domain tracking on that scale is a huge task. In fact, it’s a pain in the ass. […]

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  5. The Missing Google Analytics Manual | FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog says:
    February 22, 2009 at 6:52 am

    […] Tracking Conversion across Multiple Domains […]

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