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Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2012-01-30, 12:35

OK, so this is my fault for not being more on top of things from the start and trying to do the Wordpress Web Master thing by the seat of my pants.

I have a lot of good content on my site, it's all free and I get a lot of compliments on stuff, but statistically my Google Bounce Rate and Engagement stats are lousy. There appear to be a few different reasons for these problems. The former is easier to recognize and attempt to fix.


Better Bounce Rate - Where Did I F up?
1. I have not made enough use of excerpts. Too many posts are shorter, "read it on the front page and leave" type situations. Have fixed several of those.

2. I did not have "track PHP" active when I first opened my Analytics account because I wasn't using WordPress at that time. I never went back and added the setting once I started WordPress. That was... two years ago maybe? Long time so I don't know now that I've fixed the setting, if Google can retroactively "see things that happened" WRT to PHP pages, but I doubt it. Will have to track carefully from here.

3. I was not using YARPP or similar code to add "related links" to the end of each post. Have added today. Seems to do a reasonably good job of finding the related stuff or stuff people might find interesting.


Better Engagement Numbers, or "0 to 10 Seconds WTF?!"
Given that my blog is PHP and I had some of the above issues which are related, and then reading this article about a flaw in Google's measurement approach, my question IS: can I add function the code he shows in that article ...

Code:
(function (tos) { window.setInterval(function () { tos = (function (t) { return t[0] == 50 ? (parseInt(t[1]) + 1) + ':00' : (t[1] || '0') + ':' + (parseInt(t[0]) + 10); })(tos.split(':').reverse()); window.pageTracker ? pageTracker._trackEvent('Time', 'Log', tos) : _gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Time', 'Log', tos]); }, 10000); })('00');
... AFTER my Blog Tracking Code, but before the </script> end-tag below? IOW Can I combine them in the same script and not fowl things up for Analytics?

Code:
<script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', '############']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); </script>
Multiple JS functions between tags should be fine, right? Moreover does The Brad or other gurus agree with the article premise above? Seems very logical to me but I know nothing about how Google handles its updates or algorithms. Maybe that issue is long since resolved? Hoping not based on my numbers, and that it is a big part of the cause.


(FWIW I will also try some Minify options and the like to speed up page loads. But my site has been pretty fast to load all along so that's probably a small % of the 0-10 second "effect").

...into the light of a dark black night.
  quote
Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2012-02-04, 15:55

I killed my own thread before it started, proving time travel is possible!

(I tried this and will be looking at the analytics in the days ahead to see if any useful changes have occurred... hopefully my site not asplode).

...into the light of a dark black night.
  quote
Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2012-02-07, 14:17

Seems to be working so my assessment is:

a) you can combine unrelated functions within the Js brackets.
b) Google Analytics rocks.
  quote
Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2012-03-13, 18:07

MO' HELP NEEDED MO'FO's!

Trying to figure out the best way to set a range of IP addresses for an Analytics filter. Since my cable connection is dynamically assigned IP... I'm not sure how I could automate this. I think every time I reset my modem, I'd have to reset my Analytics filter. Which... ends up being 1-2x a week. Not the worst ever but how do you guys filter yourselves out of your own site data?

Let's say (this is Googles' sample IP) my address was 63.212.171.1. If i said filter out anything that starts with 63.212.171, the most I could be omitting is 255 people, right? And wouldn't all of them be in my immediate neighborhood / on my node? Or Might Comcast use the first three octets (or whatever they're called - the first three components) for my region of Illinois one day, next day it's being used by people in Philadelphia? I thought some aspect of IP addresses was fixed relative to geography but I'm not 100% sure.

...into the light of a dark black night.

Last edited by Moogs : 2012-03-13 at 19:13.
  quote
Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2012-03-16, 09:57

Shit. My IPs seem pretty random. Not sure how I'm going to block my own surfing out of Analytics results...
  quote
Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2012-03-16, 14:37

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs View Post
Not the worst ever but how do you guys filter yourselves out of your own site data?
Most don't (I don't), I suspect, because users of tools like Google Analytics usually have enough traffic that the site owner's contribution is negligible.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs View Post
Let's say (this is Googles' sample IP) my address was 63.212.171.1. If i said filter out anything that starts with 63.212.171, the most I could be omitting is 255 people, right? And wouldn't all of them be in my immediate neighborhood / on my node?
Probably, yes, but with NATing it's possible you could filter out hundreds or thousands of users. Only generally in the residential space does 1 IP = 1 user nowadays, and with some ISPs even that isn't the case.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
  quote
Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2012-03-28, 22:46

Crap.

Well, thanks Bradley. Part of my asking was to rule myself out in the beginning with a new site so when I'm testing dozens of pages a day or whatnot I don't register. But yeah... eventually it shouldn't matter.

...into the light of a dark black night.
  quote
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