Ability to track multiple domains that resolve to the same site

Do you have an example of some JavaScript which sets this up with GAnalytics?

Maybe have a search around on blogs etc. to see if somebody else has already got the JavaScript code sorted for it, I can use this is a basis to implement feature requests then.

I don't have the time to do any research myself at present.

it is usually best practice to redirect your domains to the main domain. this avoids google indexing your site and then peanalizing your for duplicate content on other sites (your other domains).

Use mode_rewrite to redirect your other domains. This removes any need to track multiple domains by the module.

Please allow me to reopen this. I think there are actually cases where you might want to track different domains: I am about to run one website that is served on three different domains, each domain presenting content in the relevant language. I do not want to redirect to one domain, since I want the benefit of associating the site(s) with other tlds.
I believe it is not possible to use one tracking code for different domains with GA (please correct me if it is!), so it would be really cool if we could define different tracking codes.

I think for now I'll try putting the three different tracking codes in the respective headers using VirtualSites module. I hope this will work, but I would be missing the more advanced features this module offers.

As for the possibility of tracking multiple sites with this module, do you think it is possible to make the variables that store the settings multilingual, by setting them in the settings.php? Like this:
$conf['i18n_variables'] = array(
'contact_form_information',
'menutrails_menu',
'menutrails_node_types',
'menutrails_terms',
);

I suppose this is not the proper way to do this, but it worked for MenuTrails module...

This makes sense for D6 and domain based detection.

But we have ~15 settings and if we do this in a clean way we must allow all variables to be changed. Otherwise we end up in people telling us "I'd like to exclude path xyz on site1 and zyx on site2" and so on... I'm currently not sure how we should do all this or if this is not something that should reside in a i18n module. Also no idea how the UI of this should or could looks like... Maybe create one tab per domain... but I'm really not the fan of the many variables we end up with this logic. Needs some more brainstorming...

I believe it is not possible to use one tracking code for different domains with GA (please correct me if it is!), so it would be really cool if we could define different tracking codes.

Ups - misunderstanding -> this is possible. Check the API at http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gaJSApi.html#_gat.GA_Tracker_.... For the my other idea i think we need some more investigation and a new case.

Ah, true! See also this page: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55503

But if you do this, how would you in practice make sure that all links between the domains get the _link function added? I wouldn't know how to do this for automatically created links, like those between translations.

What would happen if you did not use any special GA functions, and just inserted one and the same tracking code on different top-level domains?

I think this cross links will be logged as outbound links if you change from example.fr to example.it or so, but after you are clicking on example.it is is normally logged. But I've never tested special domain change... I only say this from the regex. If it works this way I would really say it works as designed. If you leave example.fr you are leaving this domain... so nothing wrong. I would also expect that Google Site Overlay cannot handle this domain changes and this is partly why we have this JS file build as it is. Hope this explanation is not tooo confusing.

Have you already tried it and is something broken or is this only a theoretical question?

I haven't tried it yet, but I think I will. You did make clear to me why we (probably) would want to mark those links, because they would count as outbound. But since I don't know how to mark every link to the other domain with the _link function, I think having those counted as outbound is not too much of a problem for me.

I've provided a patch to provide the support ArjanLikesDrupal talks about, using _link(), on issue #339235: Add multi/cross domain tracking. It's against the current D5 dev branch, but it should be trivial to port it forward to D6.

Hi "budda", sorry for re-open this but i think it really worth it. I have a similar problem like the user "ArjanLikesDrupal", but i "workarounded" the problem without altering your module code, and i explain it here in detail so you may like to review it.

I have a site that is represented by two Associations that work together, so they share the same site and content, but they want to have 2 different domain names for each other, because eventhough those entities work together and share site and contents (as i already said) they apply to different types of visitors and regions (one Association has a national target, and the other has an international target), so they need to track the different traffic activity depending of which domain was used.

This mean that i can't use Google's recomendation/solution to "How do i track a site that has different domain aliases?" because they suggest to redirect all to one domain, and i can't use that solution in my case.

I have made a "workaround" for the problem, already tested and working by me, not editing any code in the module, but inserting an snippet in the "Custom Javascript Code" section in your module (Home » Administer » Site configuration » Google Analytics » Advance Settings » Custom Javascript Code » Code snippet before).

The snippet is:

if (document.domain.toLowerCase() == "www.DOMAIN-ONE.org")
{
   var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNNNN-1");
}
else if (document.domain.toLowerCase() == "www.DOMAIN-TWO.org")
{
    var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNNNN-2");
};

This snippet is working well as far as i tested, the only major disadvantage is that as your module insert the snippet in this location:

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNNNN-1");

// SNIPPET "Code Snippet Before" INSERTION HERE

pageTracker._trackPageview();

the final result looks like:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
try
{
    var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNNNN-1");

    if (document.domain.toLowerCase() == "www.DOMAIN-ONE.org")
    {
        var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNNNN-1");
    }
    else if (document.domain.toLowerCase() == "www.DOMAIN-TWO.org")
    {
        var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNNNN-2");
    }

    pageTracker._trackPageview();
}
catch(err) {}
</script>

So the disadvantage here is that the code is executing the _gat._getTracker() twice, the first time in your code, and the second one in my snippet.

I know i may do:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
try
{
    var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNNNN-1");

    if (document.domain.toLowerCase() == "www.DOMAIN-TWO.org")
    {
        var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNNNN-2");
    }

    pageTracker._trackPageview();
}
catch(err) {}
</script>

So i just execute getTracker in case i'm entering the second domain, but i write the first example to show more clearly the idea.

This is also useful in case you use subdomains where it's contents are in the same drupal instalation. For example the case of using a subdomain as a shortcut.
Like "forums.DOMAIN-ONE.org" where the forums are part of the main site indeed, but you add that subdomain as a shortcut to your visitors, and you want to track independently which of them access forums through the main site (www DOMAIN-ONE.org/forums) and which from the subdomain (forums.DOMAIN-ONE.org)
In case you have a subdomain that is pointing to a part of within the same site, there is no way (by now) to have differents Google Analytics Snippets, because both are the same site. With this feature you may solve this kind of issue, also.

I thought about different ways to add this feature into your module, for example:

- The module may have a default UA number (as is it now) but you may add additional UA depending for different aliases you specify, so 2 textboxes, one with "domain name" and the other with "UA nuber" for that domain and use a similar snippet as i shown before.
But may be this requires lot of work so the second suggestion is...

- In advance settings where you have the Code Snippet textareas "before" and "after" add another one with "Enter your own full snippet code" that replaces all between "script" tags, that is replacing also the lines "_getTracker()" and "trackPageview()"

I think this second one is really simple to implement and you only need to check if that textarea is empty you add the two lines of code, if not, you don't add the two lines and instead you add the whole snippet.

Well i know that i've written a lot, i hope you would read it, because many people like me has this same issue, and you made an incredible work with your module so may be you add this tiny but great functionality. Fortunately i have "workarrounded" it with your feature to add my own snippet, but as you see it affects performance asking twice for the getTracker...

Last question, are you sure Google penalizes your site, in my type of case? Should i write Google about my situation of needing 2 different domain names for the same site, as they respond to different entities that share the same site?

Thanks really a lot for reading :)

And note that DOMAIN-ONE and DOMAIN-TWO are fictious addresses used as example, i don't know if they really exists.

Thanks again, see you!

Claudio Abraham
mrbrowny in Drupal
From Argentina

You should be able to solve this much cleaner and easier by overriding the UA number in settings.php. In such a case you don't need to add any JS code.

Try this example and report back, please. I haven't fully tested it, but code wise it's correct and in a limited testing environment it works well. If it works well, I can add it to the GA documentation pages. Add this code to your site's settings.php, typically located in "sites/all/default" and change the hostnames to yours.

[settings.php]

// Override Google Analytics account number per hostname. Hostnames need to be lower-case!
switch ($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']) {
  case 'www.example.com':
  case 'www.example.net':
  case 'forum.example.net':
    $conf['googleanalytics_account'] = 'UA-123456-2';
    break;

  case 'www.example.org':
    $conf['googleanalytics_account'] = 'UA-123456-3';
    break;

  default:
    $conf['googleanalytics_account'] = 'UA-123456-1';
}

Additional to this you should always make sure that your .htaccess does redirects to your domains and does not allow any domain or your content will be detected as duplicate content. If both sites share the same - it may not took long to detect. Additionally not if the machine runs on the same IP or subnet.

http://drupal.org/node/595520

Hi "hass", thanks for your immediate answer.

I think your code is ok and you are right about not to override the Javascript code (that's why i called many times the solution as a "workarround"), because is not a good-practice, but... honestly i think this issue isn't solved either, because i don't like to have a code that overrides settings of a module (another "workarround" to the problem), where in no place of that module advices to be aware to check additional config in settings.php

I will change the status to "needs work", because i think this must be solved within the module, because anyway by overriding via php, or javascript, is an "override" at all and it's not the best way to solve this.
And also, as i would like to see this feature in the module, i will change the category to "feature request". Because now people has a new "workarround" but still no correct solution within the module.

Think in a website that a user has a profile enabled to access the module to make configuration changes, but that same person is not allowed to access the FTP files. This user would not be able to use your solution in this case.
Also may happen that the user in charge of the config of the module doesn't know why their settings within the module are override, creating a great confusion, because he don't has access to FTP.

Please don't get me wrong by changing the status and the category, i think your solution is more near be the correct one than my solution, but it's still incomplete, this must be done inside the module, not from outside.

I would like to ask "budda" (the mantainer of the module, as i see) to give us his opinion about this.

Thanks a lot!

Claudio Abraham
mrbrowny in Drupal
From Argentina

I've provided a good and valid solution. Currently there is no better way to solve your edge case and I have no good idea how an Ui could looks like for this feature. Additional we said won't fix earlier.

Budda does not actively maintain ga for over ~2 years, but he may comment…

Oh Hass, please don't get angry with me, i didn't know you were the manteinter now of this module... I thought you were just an user commenting as i did.

So please forgive me if I offended you... :(

I thought it would be easy for you just to add another textarea here:

Custom JavaScript code
You can add custom Google Analytics code snippets here. These will be added to every page that Google Analytics appears on. Before you add custom code to the below textarea's you should read Google Analytics Tracking Code - Functional Overview and the Google Analytics Tracking API documentation. Do not include the <script> tags, and always end your code with a semicolon (;).

Code snippet (before):
[         textarea             ]
Code in this textarea will be added before pageTracker._trackPageview().


Code snippet (after):
[         textarea             ]
Code in this textarea will be added after pageTracker._trackPageview(). This is useful if you'd like to track a site in two accounts.


Code snippet (overrride):
[         textarea             ]
Code in this textarea will replace all the code inside the "script" tag. Note that using this option, "Role specific traffic settings" and "User segmentation settings" won't work.

I know this feature seems to be rare, but many webmasters i know have the same problem, and i thought that your module would be "the light at the end of the tunnel".

Its a pity for a manteiner to get pissed off with an user that not only explained the feature needed, also gave a possible (not the best) solution within the module, but may be i misunderstood you.

Well thanks anyway...

Claudio Abraham
mrbrowny in Drupal
From Argentina

Do you really think that you need to reconfigure every week your GA number on a site? I do not think so... it's an job for an admin and nobody else. If the admin do not have access to settings.php we need to ask if we is really an admin. This is a "one time" configuration + you will get banned by google for duplicate content... what you are doing is a bad idea and no-one should do and everyone aware about this will not host duplicate content.

Therefore - why should we implement something in a UI - nobody should technically implement? The only reason that someone may need my example is for domain based language detection... and this is the only situation where this should be used IRL. You can use it too - but do not wonder if your content get banned by Google! Be warned...

Override will not work well for the reason that many features break. In such a case we need many placeholders in the JS code... I do not like to do this... the GA module does a bit more than only outputting the standard static GA code from google. For e.g. try with dynamic segmentation...

Ok, i understand your point. I accept the won't fix.

The only thing i should recommend you is to learn a bit more about Duplicate Content Penalization, because as i described before, and as you may see in the official google webmaster central blog, my case is not one to be banned, at least Google will determine which domain to display with the URL:

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog - Demystifying the "duplicate content penalty"

Eventhough they say:

Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

They get more in-depth and say:

Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don't follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.

Of course a disadvantage is the difficulty to climb up in the search results, with 2 different domains, but this is not anymore of my concern. I have warned my clients about that, but they still want to be in two different domains, so, well, the client is always right.

Thanks for all, anyway!

See you!

Claudio Abraham
mrbrowny in Drupal
From Argentina

This is 100% what I've said... what do I need to learn about Duplicate Content Penalization?

This:

"Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results."

So as you may see, my kind of site does not pretend to be deceptive or manupulate the results, so as Google says, they won't take any "action" meaning in that phrase, "penalization".

Also you have:

"If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don't follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results."

That means no penalization either, they just show only one of the two same links, but they not ban the entire site/domain, they show the link of which domain es visited most, for every link.

So, i see Google saying "hey you have 2 domain names for the same site? Well we won't ban it if you are not cheating, we just will show for every link, the domain name that is accessed most for that link"

Lesson is: don't panic or help people to get paranoid about every duplicate content will get your site banned. If you are not cheating, Google won't ban you anything. Just may be, will waste positions in the results, having the visitors entering through two domains.

Do you really think the Google robot or algorithm have the ability to make such decisions 100% for sure? Cool dreams... *G*

This docs are only the basic rules - being a good guy by doing everything correct and writing your own unique text is the only way for not going to get punished :-). Never sell your text and so on and so on... I'm out now.

Hi Alexander,

Thank you for providing this solution. The domains are detected by Analytics without any problems.
This kind of solutions are pretty normal for multi-domain installations, for example for website title, slogans etc. see here:

http://info4admins.com/content/howto-translate-my-website-data-drupal

Greetings,
Arjan