Insights

Cleaning up Google Analytics using Query Parameters Part 1

Vlad and Gus, forensic web analysts from the Web Detective Agency, are discussing ways to make their clients’ website data more readable. Vlad has just made a suggestion.

Vlad: One of the main problems is when you are looking at all this data we’ve got so many instances of what is the actually the same web page.

Gus: What do you mean the same page?

Vlad: Well, these query parameters in the URLs, all this nonsense from our point of view, is making the data difficult to read. If it’s difficult to read, then less insight, less action and less improvement for our clients.

Gus: Challenging, rather than difficult. That’s what you taught me to say.

OK, so how do you go about getting rid of these query parameters?

Vlad: Here’s a video from one of my buddies, Matt Lacey, explaining how first to identify which query parameters you may want to exclude from Google Analytics.

Gus: OK, and once you have identified the query parameters, what do you do with them?

Vlad: Matt has produced another video tutorial, on how you then exclude these query parameters from your data within Google Analytics, but let’s watch his first video, shall we?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3k5nxZh_7o [/youtube]