For public machines, it depends which library you are sitting in, for staff machines they default to a staff gateway that many change to the library home page.

___________________________________________
Michael Friscia
Manager, Digital Library & Programming Services 

Yale University Library
(203) 432-1856


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ross Singer
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 9:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Google Analytics w/ Sub-sub-domains

On Feb 7, 2012, at 3:23 PM, "Predmore, Andrew" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> We have actually already discussed that case.  Right now, it is exactly as
> you described.  But, those cases cannot explain how 50,000 people can hit
> the home page in one day and 48,850 are dropping off.

Do your public machines have the library's web page as their homepage?  Do your staff machines?

-Ross. 
> 
> People might be interested in the solution we came up with for the home
> page drop-off problem in a huge place like this:
> 
> At first, we had talked about filtering by IP range.  But, that would be a
> maintenance nightmare, and it wouldn't allow us to track computers that
> did not have the website as the homepage, like staff, mobile, etc.
> 
> Then, we realized that we do have control over the machine images in the
> public areas.  And, we could set up aliases for the library home page,
> like library.yale.edu/image1, library.yale.edu/area2.  So, we could set
> the browser home pages to the aliases, and we could tell exactly which
> request were coming in from our public computers, and wether they really
> were dropping of or not.
> 
> -- 
> Clayton "Andrew" Predmore
> Manager, Web Operations
> Yale University Library
> [log in to unmask]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 2/7/12 10:52 AM, "Andy Kohler" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> If your library's machines all have www.library.yale,edu as their home
>> page.... are you assuming that users actually click links to leave
>> that home page?  User sits at library machine, user sees library home
>> page, user types url for gmail or youtube or facebook,,, does GA track
>> those actions?
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 12:55 PM, Predmore, Andrew
>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> Thank you for your help.  But, there appears to be another problem.  The
>>> main landing page is on www.library.yale.edu, but almost every link of
>>> that page goes to resources.library.yale.edu.  Right now, I am seeing a
>>> 98% drop-off from the home page.  It looks like Google is not tracking
>>> the
>>> visit across the sub-domains.
>>> 
>>> Is there a way to fix this?
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Clayton "Andrew" Predmore
>>> Manager, Web Operations
>>> Yale University Library
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 2/6/12 3:10 PM, "BRIAN TINGLE" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> This can be really tricky to get right when you have a more complicated
>>>> site with lots of domains.  Since you are all on .yale.edu it should be
>>>> easier than crossing .cdlib.org to .universityofcalifornia.edu.  If I
>>>> understand correctly, you should be able to
>>>> _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', '.yale.edu']); on every page and it should
>>>> work.
>>>> 
>>>> http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingSite.html#
>>>> do
>>>> mainSubDomains
>>>> 
>>>> This debugging plugin for chrome is pretty useful
>>>> 
>>>> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jnkmfdileelhofjcijamephohjechh
>>>> na
>>>> 
>>>> It will help you confirm what is getting sent to google.
>>>> 
>>>> -- Brian
>>>> 
>>>> On Feb 6, 2012, at 11:53 AM, Predmore, Andrew wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> I have been tasked with updating the Analytics for the Yale University
>>>>> Library, and I am having quite a bit of trouble.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Specifically, I was hoping to only track domain names that included
>>>>> library.yale.edu, like www.library.yale.edu,
>>>>> resources.library.yale.edu, but the instructions don't seem to cover
>>>>> sub-sub-domains like this.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Also, I was hoping to set up a profile/filter that would show me the
>>>>> sub-domains in the reports.  Again, I followed the directions but I am
>>>>> not getting any results.  Well, that's not entirely true the reports
>>>>> are
>>>>> showing about 30 visitors a day (and no page hits, how is that
>>>>> possible?).  The main profile is showing 5,000 ­ 10,000 visitors day.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Does anyone have experience with this that could help me out?  Maybe
>>>>> there is even someone from Google at the conference?
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> Clayton "Andrew" Predmore
>>>>> Manager, Web Operations
>>>>> Yale University Library
>>>>> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>