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Referral lost after redirect

I have a website ( www.accent.jobs ) that contains a language selection tool at www. subdomain. When choosing a language, a cookie is set, so the user sees the language selection page once and is automatically redirected the next time.

What I noticed in Google Analytics is that traffic from www to a subdomain (for example, be.accent.jobs) is considered referral traffic.

What am I doing on www. subdomain:

  • The user clicks on the link.
  • Javascript executes an AJAX request to a PHP file that sets a cookie.
  • The user is redirected via JavaScript using window.location .

When the user returns to www. subdomain, redirection is done through PHP using 302 without page rendering.

Any ideas on how I can get traffic from www. to a subdomain that should not be treated as referral traffic in Google Analytics? I would like to keep the original referrer (the site that linked to www.accent.jobs) as a referrer in Google Analytics.

This is the tracking code on both www and be. subdomain:

 var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxx-xx']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'accent.jobs']); _gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'accent.jobs']); _gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'be.accent.jobs']); _gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'nl.accent.jobs']); _gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'ro.accent.jobs']); _gaq.push(['b._setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxx-x']); _gaq.push(['b._trackPageview']); _gaq.push(['b._setDomainName', 'accent.jobs']); _gaq.push(['b._addIgnoredRef', 'accent.jobs']); _gaq.push(['b._addIgnoredRef', 'be.accent.jobs']); _gaq.push(['b._addIgnoredRef', 'nl.accent.jobs']); _gaq.push(['b._addIgnoredRef', 'ro.accent.jobs']); (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); })();

PS: I am tracking several UA accounts in order to store data in a higher account, hence the “double” tracking code.

Is trying

  • Tried replacing JavaScript redirection with header redirection on server side 302 in PHP, no luck.
  • Also tried using only JavaScript redirects, still no luck.
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2 answers

Your use of _setDomainName correct and sufficient. But its value is never sent to Google Analytics: you must use it before _trackPageview .

Then _addIgnoredRef no longer used.

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Move the _trackPageview calls after the calls to _setDomainName and _addIgnoredRef .

_setDomainName sets the domain for GA cookies that are set during _trackPageview. Having _setDomainName after _trackPageview, the default cookie domain is used, as a result of which two different sets of cookies and data are not transferred between the domain / subdomain.

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