On www.mathelike.de I’m using different layouts with buildr.

joomla 3.6.5
buildr v1.3.2
zentools2 v2.3.3


I’m recognizing a suddenly increasing bounce rate from long time average 5% to near 100% and back to now average 40%. I know there're many reasons for this. But I’ve read about the reason could possibly be the multiple usage of the tracking code. So in general, if I have a homepage template, a template for standard pages and some other templates for landing pages, do I have to copy the google analytics code with the template settings (before the closing head tag) in every template I’m using if I want every page to be tracked? Or do I copy the code just once for example in the homepage template?

Thanks for any assistance!

Christian

Hi Christian,

You should add the tracking code to each template style to make sure it's added to every page of the site.

Can you give an example of pages that use the different template styles?

There is a chrome extension for debugging tracking code which is handy for debugging and shows you all the data that gets sent to analytics: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-analytics-debugger/jnkmfdileelhofjcijamephohjechhna?hl=en

You can also check in the referrals area of analytics to see if you are getting any spam/ghost spam hits to the site.
This htaccess file can block out some of the common bots that actually visit a site: github.com/Stevie-Ray/referrer-spam-blocker/blob/master/.htaccess
You can use an inclusive filter to make sure all recorded traffic is to your own hostname to block out ghost spam.

Regards,

Rob

Hi Rob,

for example the Homepage www.mathelike.de uses buildr background theme with modified module positions and a standard page like www.mathelike.de/loesungen-abitur/mathematik-abitur-bayern-2016/pruefungsteil-b/analysis-2/teilaufgabe-1c.html uses the buildr responsive theme with modified module positions.

There are some other pages using a different layout:
www.mathelike.de/ueber-mathelike.html uses a modified buildr background theme
www.mathelike.de/lizenzen/lizenzen.html uses a modified buildr responsive theme

I have copied the GA code to all these four different template styles.

Many thanks for your interesting informations. I'm going to try out your recommendations.

I already had problems with referral/ghost spam and I followed instructions to filter and block them with GA filter methods. This works, but maybe wasn't enough...

How can I stay actual with the referer spam blocker htaccess? Do I need to check manually for updates of the file?

Regards,
Christian

Hi Christian,

You would need to manually update the htaccess rules.

There used to be some tools that would update the filters for you but I can't find any that are still live.

This is the best article I have seen about the best ways to block analytics spam: help.analyticsedge.com/spam-filter/definitive-guide-to-removing-google-analytics-spam/

I'm seeing the same tracking snippet on each of the links you posted.

Regards,

Rob

Hi Rob,

thank you very much! I'm going to work through this.

Regards,
Christian

Best of luck with the site

Cheers
Paul