Huge Analytics discrepancy when I turned off Analytics Module & Turned on GA via GTM
-
Hello,
I was running universal GA via a GA Drupal module. We setup Google Tag Manager and setup a GA tag to run through GTM. When we pushed the GTM container live our Real Time was at around 1900 and when we turned off the Drupal module the Real Time was reporting around 1100.
After 24 hours the sessions for that day were about 100k lower than what they usually are.
Any ideas Why the larger discrepancy? Any places that are obvious to look?
*I didn't setup the original Drupal GA module, nor do I know who did.
Thanks
-
Thanks, Dirk. I had the devs move the data layer above the GTM container snippet. The GA tag is still not firing on pages with a data layer and firing on pages without a data layer.
Obviously, it looks like there is an issue with the data layer -- I can't figure out what it is. I took a screen grab of the data layer in the source code.
-
Can only give you a theoretical answer - don't have that much experience with debugging the tag manager. From the "manual":
Data layer needs to be above the container snippet
Datalayer should be added above the container snippet. Variables pushed to the data layer after the container snippet will not be able to fire tags on page loads with a matching condition.
Variables pushed to the data layer after the container snippet will not be able to fire tags on page loads with a matching condition.
Move the datalayer to above the container snippetCheck also https://www.optimizesmart.com/google-tag-manager-data-layer-explained-like-never/ - it seems that you define your data layer after the position of the tag - so the tag cannot send the info from the data layer to Analytics. Check your source code & check where the data layer is defined. Probably it's ok on your category pages but not on the detail pages (compare both types to see the difference)
Hope this helps.
Dirk
-
Hey Dirk,
I checked the debugger and on the pages where the tag isn't firing the console isn't even acknowledging GTM.
The Tag Assistant is showing this error on pages where the GA tag is not firing: 'data layer needs to be above the container snippet.' Do you think this could be the issue?
I work with a journal site, and I notice that on landing pages the GA tag mostly fires correctly, but on article pages the tag doesn't fire and I get the 'data layer' error from tag assistant. e.x: the tag fires on /news but not on /news/some-random-article-from-today
-
Apart from the Tag manager assistant - you could also check the debugger -https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-analytics-debugger/jnkmfdileelhofjcijamephohjechhna?hl=en-US - like Martijn mentioned there should be an error somewhere - did you check the messages in the console?
-
That is possible, the coding is a mess. How could I see if there were or were not JavaScript errors on the page? And if there were, how to pinpoint which are interfering with my GA tag firing?
Thanks, Martijn!
-
Are you sure that there are no JavaScript errors on the page?
-
I found a subdirectory that the GA tag is not firing on though the GTM container is present.
When I use Debug, I get this message:
No tags were evaluated because there was no Event in the selected Message
I have no idea as to why the tag is not firing.
-
Hmm yeah that seems right to me!
-
Thanks, Dirk. I'm going to follow your suggestions.
Martijn, the track type id is 'pageview' and is set to fire on 'all pages'. For my Tag Firing Options I have selected 'once per event.'
Does that seem to be right?
-
What Dirk is suggesting would be the first thing to do in my opinion as well. But the second one is what trigger are you using in Google Tag Manager. Are you targeting all pages in there or something else?
-
Run Screaming Frog - and check if the tag id is present on all pages. Apart from checking - you could also extract the code from the source to double check that the ID is correct; check here how you can do this
In Analytics reporting (Behavior > Site Content > Content Drill down) set the day after migration & compare it to the day before migration - check if there if the drop is generic (=all pages) or linked to a few sections. If the drop is higher in specific sections - go down to next level & do the same. Check the pages with the highest traffic loss using the Tag Assistant plugin for Chrome. It checks if the tag is properly implemented on these pages (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tag-assistant-by-google/kejbdjndbnbjgmefkgdddjlbokphdefk)
You can also use the Tag Assistant plugin on your main pages to see if it is sending data as you would expect.
Hope this helps.
Dirk
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Moving our Google Analytics Account to a New Account
My company is building a new website with a new web development company. Our old website development company hosted our Google Analytics account on their account (this was done 13+ years ago, probably a good idea then, but we definitely would've done it differently knowing what we know now). I've been researching how we could move our GA property to a new account owned by us, but according to this article: "There are some circumstances in which you cannot move a property:
Reporting & Analytics | | GreatLegalMarketing
-> The source account and the destination account are not in the same Google Marketing Platform organization. Contact an organization admin to make sure both accounts belong to the same organization." In our case, the source account and the destination account do not belong to the same organization. I may just have to accept that we are losing 13+ years of historical data about our website, and if that's the case, oh well. But, if anyone has an idea how we can export/import our GA data to our new analytics account, I would greatly appreciate it.0 -
MOZ rankings HUGE drop to 1
Hello, My website's MOZ rankings dropped dramatically to DA 1 PA 1 MOZ rank 0 Backlinks 0. A problem seems that my backlinks are no longer recognised, as there are of course many backlinks active and not the 0 mentioned. Also, I recently experienced a big drop in Google SERP, only for my homepage (main keyword), not for subpages (longtail). I don't know what might be the cause for the SERP and MOZ drop. The only thing I can think of is that the past months I first changed from http://www.mydomain to http://my domain and later to https://mydomain However this was done properly and added in Google search console. Also Google SC does recognise my backlinks still (eventhough most are to the old redirected http://www.mydomain version). Can this be the cause, or do you have any suggestions what might be the cause, or what I can do to find out? Obviously I am interested in finding out the reason for the big SERP drop as this might have to do with the same cause for the big MOZ drop. Thanks! 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | Torilion0 -
AMP Session Stitching - How to deal with Google's Client ID AMP Policy
Hello, I recently attended SMX East and the concept of 'session stitching' for AMP was brought up (https://www.stonetemple.com/amp-tech-guide/). I reached out to my development team and they told me they could do it, but that we would need to agree to the new TOS changes and making users aware of then... https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/7486055 Has anyone here done something like this? And if so how did you deal with the Google's Client ID AMP policy? Thank you all! -Margarita
Reporting & Analytics | | MargaritaS1 -
How Reliable is the Avg Query Position in GA?
Hi Moz Community, I wanted to know how reliable the average position data is for queries in Google Analytics search console report. I know this report is fairly new this year and the numbers are calculated a bit differently than they were in the old search engine optimization report. I want to know what the biggest differences are between this search console report vs. the old SEO report in GA. I'm also pretty confused about how GA reports on the average position. Obviously it's an average position of whatever date range your choose. But for instance, if your site shows multiples landing pages for one search query will it roll that into the average or just take the landing page that ranks higher? Does the position average take into account video or photo serp results and is this the average across mobile, desktop and tablet? This number has always been a guess since it's sampled data but I want to know how accurate it is. I read this article in 2014 (linked below) but I'm not sure if it all still applies now that that data might be presented differently. https://mza.seotoolninja.com/ugc/testing-the-accuracy-of-avg-position-for-search-queries-in-google-webmaster-tools Any answers or discussions would be great here. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | znotes1 -
Filter staff IP address in Analytics
Hi, I'm trying to filter staff visits from Analytics on a new view. IT have given me an IP address range and I have found the following advice: "For an IP address range, you’ll have to select Custom Filters, then choose Exclude, and IP Address from the dropdown list. Then, enter a regular expression for the IP Address" If this is correct, how do I write the IP address range 1xx.xxx.xxx.160 - 1xx.xxx.xxx.223 in RegEx? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Houses0 -
Google Analytics Customer filters & the correct syntax
Good afternoon from torential rain and thunder Wetherby UK 😞 Ive been delving into the world of custom filters in Google analytics and Ive hit a problem. Apart from Googles advice being out of date (wont get into that one) I wanted to set up clone a profile of an existing site and set up a filter that would exclde USA traffic. But a country can be called many things e.g. United Sates USA America so how do you know what is the correct name to put in the filter pattern box? Here is a screen shot of my efforts :http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/filter-toexclude-usatrafficcopy.jpg (I chaned it to United States) So my question is where is there a list of the correct syntax for the filter pattern box? Taker for example you wnated to set up a custom filter to include just Palm OS traffic apprently from reading this the correct filter patter is Palm OS, i only know that from this http://www.e-nor.com/blog/web-analytics/tracking-mobile-devices-in-google-analytics Whilst Google has lots of documentation about filed patterns as documented here http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1034380&topic=1034830&ctx=topic Where in the name of flying spacial jockstraps is there documentation for the correct filter pattern syntax. Help my head hurts 😞
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing0 -
Looking for a Drupal module to track conversions...
I don't use drupal very often, so I'm looking for some help. We manage two sites in drupal, and the way they are set up, it creates a new thank you page every time someone fills out a contact form. The thank you page displays the information that was entered, so I assume it is necessary to create a page to do this (this was set up before I came on board). What I'm trying to do is track conversions in analytics by thank you page, but because a different node is created for every page, it makes things really difficult. My guess is that there's some kind of module or shortcut that could make this easier. Do any of you know of something, or preferably, is there something you're using that you'd endorse? Thanks for your help. -Adam
Reporting & Analytics | | DeliaAssociates0 -
Increased Bounce Rate & Dollar Index?
We use Google Analytics on our ecommerce site and we recently made several changes to an important page. Due to logistical reasons, we couldn't perform a Google web optimizer test but tracked the page's numbers in analytics from before/after the changes were made. After a week, we noticed that the bounce rate on the page went up by about 10% but the dollar index also doubled. We're trying to figure out how this could happen, since it seems kind of odd. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Reporting & Analytics | | airnwater0