Re-classifying a Traffic Source in Google Analytics

[EvansHunt]

Hey All,

I think it's inside of the Admin section of Google Analytics, right now I have a traffic source from the domain of indeed.ca that is being classified as Organic traffic when it should be classified as referring traffic, how can I tell Google Analytics that all traffic from this source should be classified as referral traffic and not organic traffic?

Furthermore, after I make this change, will Google Analytics re-classify my past data so I can do a proper analysis? I can't remember how to do this and any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[Kevin_P]

Do you mind sharing how you ended up resolving this issue? I may have a similar situation.

[KaneJamison]

I second Federico's suggestion about making sure installation is perfect sitewide. Martijn's comment is also correct - you can't edit anything in the past.

I have a couple more thoughts:

1. If you control the links that are placed at indeed.ca, just add your own custom UTM tracking codes so that everything is categorized correctly

2. It is possible to redirect users coming in from a specific referral source (eg indeed.ca) before they load the page and hit the analytics code. So, you would redirect the user to the same URL that they requested, but you would add something like ?utm_source=Indeed.ca&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Job%20Listing at the end of the URL. I honestly would not bother going to this trouble unless it's seriously screwing up your reporting.

3. If you're currently looking at medium, you could try switching to channel reporting instead to see if it's still reported incorrectly?

4. You could do a custom Channel Grouping for it. To be honest I don't do these much, but it was suggested within our office as a potential solution. You can learn more about them at http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/new-google-analytics-channel-groupings and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1250116?hl=en.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Hi Andrew,

I don't know a lot about re-classifying your traffic, but what I do know that close to every feature is not backwards compatible in Google Analytics. So you won't be able to change the data from the past with the new data.

[FedeEinhorn]

Are you sure the Analytics code is installed correctly? I've seen this issue in the past and all the times it was a bad installation of the code.

Example: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/analytics/DHACtWJE1_I