Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Unsolved Capturing Source Dynamically for UTM Parameters
-
Does anyone have a tutorial on how to dynamically capture the referring source to be populated in UTM parameters for Google Analytics?
We want to syndicate content and be able to see all of the websites that provided referral traffic for this specific objective. We want to set a specific utm_medium and utm_campaign but have the utm_source be dynamic and capture the referring website.
If we set a permanent utm_source, it would appear the same for all incoming traffic.
Thanks in advance!
-
@peteboyd said in Capturing Source Dynamically for UTM Parameters:
Thanks in advance!
UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters are tags that you can add to the end of a URL in order to track the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. These parameters are used by Google Analytics to help you understand how users are interacting with your website and where they are coming from.
There are five different UTM parameters that you can use:
utm_source: This parameter specifies the source of the traffic, such as "google" or "Facebook".
utm_medium: This parameter specifies the medium of the traffic, such as "cpc" (cost-per-click) or "social".
utm_campaign: This parameter specifies the name of the campaign, such as "spring_sale" or "promotion".
utm_term: This parameter specifies the term or keywords used in the campaign, such as "shoes" or "dress".
utm_content: This parameter specifies the content of the ad, such as the headline or the call-to-action.
To capture the source dynamically for UTM parameters, you can use JavaScript to get the value of the document. referrer property. This property returns the URL of the page that is linked to the current page. You can then use this value to set the utm_source parameter dynamically.
For example, you might use the following code to set the utm_source parameter based on the referring URL:
Copy code
var utmSource = '';if (document.referrer.indexOf('google') !== -1) {
utmSource = 'google';
} else if (document.referrer.indexOf('facebook') !== -1) {
utmSource = 'facebook';
}// Add the utm_source parameter to the URL
var url = 'http://www.example.com?utm_source=' + utmSource;
This code will set the utm_source parameter to "google" if the user came to the page from a Google search or to "Facebook" if the user came to the page from Facebook. If the user came to the page from another source, the utm_source parameter will be left empty.You can then use this modified URL in your marketing campaigns to track the effectiveness of your campaigns and understand where your traffic is coming from.
-
@peteboyd you can refer to this tutorial: https://www.growwithom.com/2020/06/16/track-dynamic-traffic-google-tag-manager/
Should meet your requirements perfectly - using GTM to replace a static value with the url in your UTM Source.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why Product pages are throwing Missing field "image" and Missing field "price" in Wordpress Woocommerce
I have a wordpress wocommerce website where I have uploaded 100s of products but it's giving me error in GSC under merchant listing tab. When I tested it show missing field image and missing field price. I have done everything according to https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/product#merchant-listing-experiences and applied fixed i.e. images are 800x800 and price range is also there. What else can be done here?!merchant listing.jpg
Technical SEO | | Ravi_Rana0 -
Unsolved MOZ API to Google Data Studio
Dopes MOZ have anything like this? https://www.semrush.com/features/google-data-studio-connector/
Product Support | | WebMarkets0 -
Dynamic Canonical Tag for Search Results Filtering Page
Hi everyone, I run a website in the travel industry where most users land on a location page (e.g. domain.com/product/location, before performing a search by selecting dates and times. This then takes them to a pre filtered dynamic search results page with options for their selected location on a separate URL (e.g. /book/results). The /book/results page can only be accessed on our website by performing a search, and URL's with search parameters from this page have never been indexed in the past. We work with some large partners who use our booking engine who have recently started linking to these pre filtered search results pages. This is not being done on a large scale and at present we only have a couple of hundred of these search results pages indexed. I could easily add a noindex or self-referencing canonical tag to the /book/results page to remove them, however it’s been suggested that adding a dynamic canonical tag to our pre filtered results pages pointing to the location page (based on the location information in the query string) could be beneficial for the SEO of our location pages. This makes sense as the partner websites that link to our /book/results page are very high authority and any way that this could be passed to our location pages (which are our most important in terms of rankings) sounds good, however I have a couple of concerns. • Is using a dynamic canonical tag in this way considered spammy / manipulative? • Whilst all the content that appears on the pre filtered /book/results page is present on the static location page where the search initiates and which the canonical tag would point to, it is presented differently and there is a lot more content on the static location page that isn’t present on the /book/results page. Is this likely to see the canonical tag being ignored / link equity not being passed as hoped, and are there greater risks to this that I should be worried about? I can’t find many examples of other sites where this has been implemented but the closest would probably be booking.com. https://www.booking.com/searchresults.it.html?label=gen173nr-1FCAEoggI46AdIM1gEaFCIAQGYARS4ARfIAQzYAQHoAQH4AQuIAgGoAgO4ArajrpcGwAIB0gIkYmUxYjNlZWMtYWQzMi00NWJmLTk5NTItNzY1MzljZTVhOTk02AIG4AIB&sid=d4030ebf4f04bb7ddcb2b04d1bade521&dest_id=-2601889&dest_type=city& Canonical points to https://www.booking.com/city/gb/london.it.html In our scenario however there is a greater difference between the content on both pages (and booking.com have a load of search results pages indexed which is not what we’re looking for) Would be great to get any feedback on this before I rule it out. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | GAnalytics1 -
How to track my actual traffic source using Google Analytics which are now showing as referral traffic?
Hi Mozzers, I went through many Q&As in the community this morning. I found a solution where I could just remove the referral site in analytics>admin>property>tracking info>referral exclusion list. So I removed paypal.com which was the main referral traffic. I thought the problem is solved. Later today I got another order, now the referral traffic is from eway.com, now what? Yes I know I will add this to the exclusion list but there will be many more referral sites. My main concern is I am not able to track the actual traffic source. How do I do that? 1. Do I need to use google url tracking for all my pages?
Technical SEO | | DebashishB
2. Do I need to add tracking code in each page of the site?
3. Is there a way to track the actual source of this traffic, now that the transaction is already made but reflects as referral traffic in Google Analytics? jZjTN0 -
Static or dynamic category pages for seo
Hi, I'm developing an accommodation site with a limited number of properties in 8 categories. I had been looking at making the properties blog posts and then using category function to show lists but its going to require a lot of customisation and I have seo concerns about the dynamic content as the category page is crucial. As I don't have a lot to add and listings will remain the same my latest thought was to create all as pages. However if I create a page with a list of 12 properties on a category page is there anyway of adding some sorting criteria to that page (would be 7 options - swimming pool, near beach, on site creche, budget, mid-range, luxury) Thanks for any tips Neil
Technical SEO | | neilhenderson0 -
Does Title Tag location in a page's source code matter?
Currently our meta description is on line 8 for our page - http://www.paintball-online.com/Paintball-Guns-And-Markers-0Y.aspx
Technical SEO | | Istoresinc
The title tag, however sits below a bunch of code on line 237
Does the location of the title tag, meta tags, and any structured data have any influence with respect to SEO and search engines? Put another way, could we benefit from moving the title tag up to the top?
I "surfed 'n surfed" and could not find any articles about this.
I would really appreciate any help on this as our site got decimated organically last May and we are looking for any help with SEO.
NIck
0 -
XML Sitemap and unwanted URL parameters
We currently don't have an XML sitemap for our site. I generated one using Screaming Frog and it looks ok, but it also contains my tracking url parameters (ref=), which I don't want Google to use, as specified in GWT. Cleaning it will require time and effort which I currently don't have. I also think that having one could help us on Bing. So my question is: Is it better to submit a "so-so" sitemap than having none at all, or the risks are just too high? Could you explain what could go wrong? Thanks !
Technical SEO | | jfmonfette0