Google Analytics Site Overlay Trick Exposed!
December 4, 2007
As you may already know, Google Analytics comes with a report feature called Site Overlay.
The Site Overlay feature enables tracking of individual clicks on hyperlink URLs found on pages of your website. The report actually lays a “click map” over the pages of your site and allows you to track the exact links users click on throughout the pages of your website.
This can be very beneficial in determining what links convert to sales and which links are completely overlooked by visitors.
Knowing what links convert can help you determine if the keywords you use in the link convert, the location of the link converts, or both work together to generate sales.
All of this can help you organize your page to better speak to your visitors and give them what they are looking for, where they are looking for it!
However, the current Site Overlay feature has a fatal flaw.
Google Analytics Site Overlay Fatal Flaw Exposed!
As of this writing, the current Site Overlay feature tracks by URL not by location or keyword used, and it groups these results into one final metric — even if the link appears in more than one location on the page.
Why is this flawed?
Well, let’s say for example that you have the same hyperlink URL (pointing to the same product) using two different sets of keywords in two different locations on a page and want to test which location / keywords generate the most interest.
Although the locations and keywords are different, the hyperlink of each is points to the same identical URL (the same product page).
So, until this little trick was discovered, if you planned on using it to track how effective the location or keywords used in a link were, then you could forget it.
If you visit your Site Overlay report in Google for the page you are testing, you’ll notice that each location shown on the site overlay contains identical conversion numbers. It doesn’t matter the location of the links, nor the keywords used. Remember, it is tracking based on hyperlink not location and since the hyperlink URL address is identical, it does not differentiate between the two locations.
Overlay showing 2 different locations depicting similar metrics
This information alone is of no use at all. It tells you nothing in the way of which link location generated the most interest and subsequently sales. It simply is no good.
But This Little Trick Solves Everything
We can fix this flaw using one little trick.
First remember that in Google’s eyes URL elements are tracked based on uniqueness. So, different URLs will yield different unique and individual metrics.
Armed with that bit of knowledge and a little creative thinking, we can turn a previous negative tracking situation into a positive one. As a result, we can now accurately track the exact location on the page that generated the most interest even if the resulting product page the visitor is taken to remains the same.
How is this done?
By adding a simple variable identifier to the hyperlink’s URL we are now able to track the location on the page that the hyperlink resided. With even a little more creative thinking, we could even track the keyword or keyword phrase we targeted in the link location.
To perform this trick, add the following to the end of each of the links you want to track. What you determine the variables to be is completely up to you, for this example I am using the term “location” and a unique identifier that correlates to the location on the page in which the link appears.
We add to the following to the hyperlink URL of the first location: &location=1
So your complete link now looks like this:
http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?cPath=20&location=1
Add the following to the hyperlink URL of the second location: &location=2
So your complete link now looks like this:
http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?cPath=20&location=2
Want to track the keyword as well? Try this:
http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?cPath=20&location=2&key=a_keyword
Yet another idea for tracking location:
http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?cPath=20&location=rightside_nav
One Distinct Product URL + Two Unique Tracking URLs = Two Different Tracking Metrics!
Now you have two distinctly different URLs in Google’s eyes but both point to the same product. Viola. Exact page location and keyword tracking in a bit ’round about way using Google Analytics.
Overlay showing tracking of location 1 on the page
Overlay showing tracking of location 2 on that page
Looking at the above results now (depicting more meaningful data), we can see that although both links point toward the same product category, the link on the left far out performs the link location on the right. There is no guessing. The proof is in the numbers. So one may consider removing the link on the right and make room for more information that converts to sales.
The limits are endless. Just make sure you do NOT include spaces in your string or it won’t work accurately. Also make sure the base URL remains the same from product to product, page to page. The only thing that should differ from each link is the variable string you add to the end.
To your success!
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December 4th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Whoa, hold on a minute there.
You MUST make sure that none of those “special” URLs can ever get indexed by search engines, otherwise you will end up with a lot of problems.
One of those is that you are creating the mother of all “Duplicate Content” issues for your site… and there are already enough of those built in to packages like osCommence and ZenCart as supplied right out of the box, without creating any more.
The other is simply that your analytics will need to be filtered. You will need to only include hits where the referrer is your own site, otherwise you’ll be looking not at people that clicked the respective link on your site, but at people that actually came in from the SERPs.
You’re best off making sure that those extended URLs can never be indexed by any search engines. There is also the other issue that you will be wasting PageRank within your site, and that has repercussions as to which pages of the site get dropped into the Supplemental Index.
You really don’t want to mess with that stuff.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
This is a great point that has been brought up.
Although none of the “location links” I have personally used on sites (over a year now) have been indexed, it is possible that one day they could I would guess.
Here is the solution to both the Page Rank issue and the Duplicate content issue.
1) To keep Page Rank intact and NOT pass it to other pages use the “nofollow” tag in your tag as such: rel=”nofollow”. This is a technique that blogs have been using on comments for quite some time now. The concept was designed back in 2005 by Google’s head of webspam team Matt Cutts and Jason Shelle.
More information the nofollow tag can be found at the following links:
Google Webmaster Guide
Wikipedia information on nofollow
Google, Yahoo, MSN Unite On Support For Nofollow Attribute For Links
2) For the duplicate content issue, you could use a robots.txt file to block the pages you do not want to get indexed.
Here is a link to an article about that technique.
Search Illustrated: Blocking Search Engines With Robots.txt
And another. This one from Google.
How do I use robots.txt to block access to my site?
I have read through research (and it says this on the Wikipedia article linked to above) that Google may follow a link with the “nofollow” attribute, however, it will NOT index it (preventing duplicate content).
January 11th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Alright, wonderful. Now how do I turn the blo0dy overlay off? Everytime I go to my site it freezes up while it tries to overlay, and I don’t know how to stop it!
January 11th, 2008 at 8:23 am
You don’t “turn it off” as such. It is by default (and automatically) turned on when you install Google Analytics (it’s a part of that system).
If you are logged into your Google Analytics account, and have initiated the site overlay feature, then in order to “stop viewing it” (this will not turn it off) you would need to click the “close” link near the top right hand side of the screen.
If you are having problems with your browser locking up, then that is more than likely a browser issue which should be looked into.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Ok, I get that you can ‘close’ the page by clicking the close button, but how do you turn off the overlay? I can’t figure it out either and it’s driving me nuts! I’ve already cleared my cache/cookies/history, etc.
Any help?
March 7th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I was looking for someone else with my same problem… and this was exactly what I decided to do. I found your post and it supported my plan, but then I read your first comment! Doh! I definitely don’t want to introduce SEO issues just to properly use Site Overlay.
There must be a better way. Or maybe this is a good solution. I definitely wouldn’t want search engines thinking I have 4 of the same page because of the extra url variables. I’m wary because I have read how important keyword based internal linking is in SEO.
Thanks for posting this helpful info and creating this line of discussion.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
How do you suppose those “heat map” tools work? I imagine they use something similar to your idea. Site Overlay is really the same idea as a Heat Map. Or does the Heat Map tools actually track your mouse cursor movements?
March 7th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
By the way, my website is not ecommerce. It is a standard corporate site selling invoice delivery services. One some pages, I have 4 different ways of getting to the same page. (e.g. header, main content, right column, footer) I’d love to be able to know what content gets read/clicked which would help me optimize the layout for visitors.
March 12th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
It’s tough with Google’s site overlay because they track the URL (not the click). But I did give a comment in reply to that first comment on this page that provides an answer to that “SEO” question. Scroll up and take a look at that for more assistance.
HeatMap software (that isn’t the actual kind which “connects to a users eye” operates by recording mouse clicks on a page. I am working on a heat map application as part of a full package of coaching services I provide. I hope to have that released in the near future.
For this you might be better off with an actual “Heat Tracking” system in place that tracks the “click”.