Google Analytics module

The Google Analytics module integrates Magnolia websites with Google Analytics. The module is based on the gaTracker jQuery plugin designed by Jason Huck and enhanced by David Simpson. The module is fully configurable within Magnolia and no additional coding is necessary. Google Analytics is a powerful solution for analyzing website traffic and how users interact on your site. It is possible to monitor virtually all site activity, even on individual elements of a page.

The module is fully integrated with the Standard Templating Kit.

Download

Download the Google Analytics for STK module from Magnolia Store or Nexus repository

Installing

Google Analytics for STK is a community module. It is included in the Enterprise Edition bundle and typically already installed. Go to Magnolia Store > Installed modules in AdminCentral to check. It is not included in the Community Edition bundle. Community Edition users need to download and install it individually. To install the module, see the general module installation instructions.

Uninstalling

See the general module uninstalling instructions and advice.

Setting your tracking code

The Google Analytics module configuration requires a unique GA tracking code (UA-XXXXXXXX-X) that you will find in your GA account.

The module is configured in /modules/google-analytics/config/sites/default.

Community Edition users are limited to a single site and should configure GA in the /sites/site node.

To start GA tracking, set the enabled property to true and enter your GA tracking code for the trackerID property.

The configurable properties within the /default/tracking node are dealt with below in Tracking options. If no specific tracking configurations are added, the /default configuration essentially tracks pageviews, but GA does provide a lot of detail about user behavior and sources.

JavaScripts

Two JavaScripts are relevant to GA tracking: jquery-gatracker and init-gatracker. You can view these in Templating Kit > Resources /templating-kit/js/ga.

These scripts, in conjunction with the GoogleAnalyticsModule class and GoogleAnalyticsJSResourceModel model class define and implement the GA requirements. They insert the required parameters into the HTML code on each page:

jquery-gatracker is the original gaTracker jQuery plug-in script that has been customized for Magnolia. It is a non-processed, normal JavaScript.
The business logic provided by GoogleAnalyticsJSResourceModel translates the Magnolia configuration to a JavaBean using the Node2Bean mechanism.
init-gatracker requests the tracking configuration from the model and injects the values into the GA configuration. init-gatracker is a processed JavaScript.

Tracking options

GA is flexible and can be customized to track almost anything. For more information see Google Analytics Developer Guides. The Magnolia module allows for most options and additional customizations can be made.

There are four tracking configuration options in/modules/google-analytics/config/sites/default/tracking that allow for the configuration of detailed tracking of events, links, domain and misc. The TrackingOptions class supports the configuration options and properties.

Link tracking

The Google Analytics module uses virtual pageviews to track download, external, mailto and anchor links. GA does not track links by default unless they are specifically tagged. The _trackPageview() method is used to tag the links and the results appear in GA as virtual pages. The only drawback of this method is that the clicks are added to the total pageview count.

Links are configured in /modules/google-analytics/config/sites/default/tracking/links. There are four subnodes: /download, /external. /mail and /anchor and each has two configurable properties:

Property	Description	Default value
`enabled`	To enable and disable the tag	`false`
`linkPrefixToAdd`	The prefix added to the link that appears in the GA reports	null

The links/download/extensions node allows for the definition of the file extensions to be included. Each extension is registered in an individual node and there are two configurable properties:

Property	Description	Default value
`enabled`	To enable and disable the extension	`true`
`name`	The node name	null

To view the links statistics in the GA interface go to Behavior > Site Content and filter on the terms “downloads”, “external”,”mailtos” or “anchors”.

Here are a few results for anchor links in the demoauthor GA account.

Event Tracking

Event Tracking allows you to record user interaction with website elements. This is accomplished by attaching the method call to the particular UI element. The accessed page element is identified in GA with a path that starts with /events-tracking. With events tracking you can, for example, determine the number of times a form was submitted, the effectiveness of a particular component type or the popularity of a page within a grouped teaser.

The EventsTrackingPattern class defines a search pattern for tracking events as a click or submit. Within these categories of events, any number of patterns can be configured. Each pattern corresponds to a CSS element defined in styles.ccs that is available in Templating Kit > Resources > /templating-kit/themes/pop/css. Tracking is triggered when GA encounters the CSS element in the HTML code of the page.

The nodes configured under /tracking/events/click/patterns/ and /submit/patterns allow for tracking activity on specific page elements. Each configuration node has four properties.

Property	Description	Default value
`cssSelector`	Defines the CSS element that triggers event tracking	null
`enabled`	Defines whether the pattern should be used	`false`
`evalStatsLink`	Defines whether the `statsLink` property should be evaluated by the JavaScript	`false`
`statsLink`	Defines the link submitted to GA when tracking is triggered. It does not form part of the rendered HTML. In GA, it represents a tracked event in the statistics	null

The pattern set in the statsLink property is the page path you see in the GA reports. For example, the /tw-paging-stage node in the screenshot above is configured to record statistics for the stkStagePaging component on the home pages of the demo sites. The pattern defines a readable path and its constituent parts translate as follows:

Part	Translation
`/events-tracking`	An event is tracked
`/click`	It is a a click event
`/teaser-wrapper`	It is a teaser element
`/main`	The element resides in the `main` area of the page
`/prev`	The specific action clicked

In GA go to Behavior > Site Content and filter on "events-tracking" to see the results. Pageview calculations are unaffected by user activity tracked using this method.

Here are a few events results for the demoauthor GA account.

Cross-domain tracking

By default, GA tracks content for a single domain, such as www.example.com. Cross-domain tracking facilitates tracking of subdomains and across separate domains within a single GA account. It is useful in many instances, for example to track users referred to a third-party payment gateway or a subdomain hosting a blog. This function should not be confused with Mapping to multiple domains above.

jquery-gatracker.js, available in STK > Resources in /templating-kit/js/ga, uses three methods for cross-domain tracking:

Method	Purpose
`_setDomainName()`	Sets the top-level domain name for cookies
`_setAllowLinker()`	Sets the linker functionality flag as part of enabling cross-domain user tracking
`_linkByPost()`	Passes the cookies from the referring form to another site in a string appended to the action value of the form (HTTP POST)

Cross-domain tracking is configured in /modules/google-analytics/sites/default/tracking/domain. There are three configurable properties:

Property	Description	Default value
`crossDomainSelector`	URL of third-party site	null
`domainName`	Top-level domain to track	null
`enabled`	To enable and disable cross-domain tracking	`false`

Miscellaneous tracking options

Additional miscellaneous tracking options can be configured in/modules/google-analytics/config/site/default/tracking/misc. There are two general properties:

Property	Description	Default value
`pageViewsEnabled`	To enable and disable pageview tracking for `misc` tracking options	`true`
`sampleRate`	Enables client-side visitor sampling. This feature is designed for high-traffic sites to reduce the load on all systems. Only a percentage of page views are tracked	null

Organic search

The organic search feature allows you to add to the list of organic search engines recognized by GA. This is helpful, for example to add local search engines that GA does not recognize. You can find a list of engines that GA tracks by default at Search Engine Configuration.

Organic search engines are configured in > /modules/google-analytics/config/site/default/tracking/misc/organicSearch/patterns. The OrganicSearchTrackingPattern class defines the search pattern for tracking organic search engines.

For each search engine there are three configurable properties.

Property	Description	Default value
`enabled`	Defines whether the pattern should be used	`false`
`queryParameterName`	Defines the query parameter name of the search engine URL, for examples 'q' in URL 'http://www.alexa.com/search?q=magnolia+cms	null
`searchEngineDomain`	Defines the URL of the search engine to track	null

Mapping to multiple domains

The Extended Templating Kit module available to Enterprise Edition users supports multiple domains. These are configured in Templating Kit > Site Definitions. Here are the site definitions for the demo sites.

Multiple domains can be tracked in a single GA account or different accounts can be used for each. The extends feature allows you to use the /default GA configuration for multiple sites and domains by defining only the properties that are different in the new configuration.

The configuration below includes all the demo sites in a single GA account, by extending the /default and /demo-project configurations. Note that node names of the sites configured in Templating Kit > Site Definitions must match the node names in the GA configuration identically.

Here are the results in the demoauthor GA account showing the inclusion of both the /demo-project and /demo-features sites in a single account.

The configuration below applies all the configurations of /default to the /demo-features site, but it is tracked in a different GA account.

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