Google Analytics Tracking API
This reference contains all of the available methods that you can use to customize data configuration for Google Analytics reporting.
All Methods, Alphabetical Order
_addIgnoredOrganic(newIgnoredOrganicKeyword)_addIgnoredRef(newIgnoredReferrer)_addItem(Item, sku, name, category, price, quantity)_addOrganic(newOrganicEngine, newOrganicKeyword)_addTrans(orderId, affiliation, total, tax, shipping, city, state, country)_clearIgnoredOrganic()_clearIgnoredRef()_clearOrganic()_cookiePathCopy(newPath)_createEventTracker(objName)_getAccount()_getClientInfo(1)_getDetectFlash(1)_getDetectTitle(1)_getLocalGifPath()_getServiceMode()_getVersion()_initData()_link(targetUrl, useHash)_linkByPost(formObject, useHash)_setAllowAnchor(enable)_setAllowHash(enable)_setAllowLinker(enable)_setCampContentKey(newCampContentKey)_setCampMediumKey(newCampMedKey)_setCampNameKey(newCampNameKey)_setCampNOKey(newCampNOKey)_setCampSourceKey(newCampSrcKey)_setCampTermKey(newCampTermKey)_setCampaignTrack(enable)_setClientInfo(enable)_setCookiePath(newCookiePath)_setCookieTimeout(newDefaultTimeout)_setDetectFlash(enable)_setDetectTitle(enable)_setDomainName(newDomainName)_setLocalGifPath(newLocalGifPath)_setLocalRemoteServerMode()_setLocalServerMode()_setRemoteServerMode()_setSampleRate(newRate)_setSessionTimeout(newTimeout)_setVar(newVal)_trackEvent(action, opt_label, opt_value) _trackPageview(opt_pageURL)_trackTrans()
Method Details
_addIgnoredOrganic()
_addIgnoredOrganic(newIgnoredOrganicKeyword)
Sets the string as ignored term(s) for Keywords reports.
Use this to configure Google Analytics to treat certain
search terms as direct traffic, such as when users enter
your domain name as a search term. When you set keywords
using this method, the search terms are still included
in your overall page view counts, but not included as
elements in the Keywords reports.
pageTracker._addIgnoredOrganic("www.mydomainname.com");
parameters
String newIgnoredOrganicKeyword Keyword search terms to treat as direct traffic.
_addIgnoredRef()
_addIgnoredRef(newIgnoredReferrer)
Excludes a source as a referring site. Use this
option when you want to set certain referring links
as direct traffic, rather than as referring sites. For example,
your company might own another domain that you want to track
as direct traffic so that it does not show up on the "Referring
Sites" reports. Requests from excluded referrals are still counted
in your overall page view count.
pageTracker._addIgnoredRef("www.sister-site.com");
parameters
String newIgnoredReferrer Referring site to exclude.
_addItem()
_addItem(Item, sku, name, category, price, quantity)
Adds a transaction item to the parent transaction object. Use this method
to track items purchased by visitors to your ecommerce site. This method
tracks items by SKU and performs no additional ecommerce calculations (such
as quantity calculations). Therefore, if the item being added is a duplicate
(by SKU) of an existing item for that session, then the old information is
replaced with the new. Additionally, it does not enforce the creation of a
parent transation object, but it is advised that you set this up explicitly
in your transaction tracking code. If no parent transaction object exists
for the item, the item is attached to an empty transaction object instead.
pageTracker._addItem(
"343212", //order ID
"DD4444", //sku
"Lava Lamp", // product name
"Decor", // category or product variation
"34.99", // price
"1" //quantity
);
parameters
String sku Item's SKU code (required).
String name Product name.
String category Product category.
String price Product price (required).
String quantity Purchase quantity (required).
_addOrganic()
_addOrganic(newOrganicEngine, newOrganicKeyword)
Adds a search engine to be included as a potential search engine
traffic source. By default, Google Analytics recognizes a
number of common search engines, but you can add additional
search engine sources to the list.
parameters
String newOrganicEngine Engine for new organic source.
String newOrganicKeyword Keyword name for new organic source.
_addTrans()
_addTrans(orderId, affiliation, total, tax, shipping, city, state, country)
Creates a transaction object with the given values. As with _addItem(),
this method handles only transaction tracking and provides no additional ecommerce
functionality. Therefore, if the transaction is a duplicate of an existing
transaction for that session, the old transaction values are over-written with the
new transaction values.
pageTracker._addTrans(
"1234", //order ID - required
"My Partner Store", //affiliation or store name
"84.99", //total - required
"7.66", //tax
"15.99", //shipping
"Boston", //city
"MA", //state or province
"USA" //country
);
parameters
String orderId Internal unique order id number for this transaction.
String affiliation Optional partner or store affiliation. (undefined
if absent)
String total Total dollar amount of the transaction.
String tax Tax amount of the transaction.
String shipping Shipping charge for the transaction.
String city City to associate with transaction.
String state State to associate with transaction.
String country Country to associate with transaction.
returns
_gat.GA_EComm_.Transactions_ The tranaction object that was
modified.
_clearIgnoredOrganic()
Clears all strings previously set for exclusion from
the Keyword reports.
_clearIgnoredRef()
Clears all items previously set for exclusion
from the Referring Sites report.
_clearOrganic()
Clears all search engines as organic sources. Use this method when you
want to define a customized search engine ordering precedence.
_cookiePathCopy()
Changes the paths of all GATC cookies to the newly-specified path.
Use this feature to track user behavior from one directory structure
to another on the same domain. In order for this to work, the GATC
tracking data must be initialized (_initData() must be called).
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12345-1");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
pageTracker._cookiePathCopy("/newSubDirectory/");
parameters
String newPath New path to store GATC cookies under.
_createEventTracker()
_createEventTracker(objName)
This method is deprecated. Creates an event tracking object with the specified name.
Call this method when you want to create a new web page
object to track in the Event Tracking section of the reporting.
See the Event Tracking Guide for more information.
var videoTracker = pageTracker._createEventTracker("Videos");
parameters
String objName The name of the tracked object.
returns
_gat.GA_EventTracker_ A new event tracker instance.
_getAccount()
Returns the Google Analytics tracking ID for this tracker object.
If you are tracking pages on your website in multiple accounts, you
can use this method to determine the account that is associated
with a particular tracker object.
returns
String Account ID this tracker object is instantiated with.
_getClientInfo()
Gets the flag that indicates whether the browser tracking module is enabled.
See _setClientInfo() for more information.
parameters
Number 1 if enabled, 0 if disabled.
_getDetectFlash()
Gets the Flash detection flag. See _setDetectFlash() for more
information.
parameters
Number 1 if enabled, 0 if disabled.
_getDetectTitle()
Gets the title detection flag.
parameters
Number 1 if enabled, 0 if disabled.
_getLocalGifPath()
Gets the local path for the Urchin GIF file. See
_setLocalGifPath() for more information.
returns
String Path to GIF file on the local server.
_getServiceMode()
Returns the server operation mode. Possible return values are 0 for local
mode (sending data to local server set by _setLocalGifPath()),
1 for remote mode (send data to Google Analytics backend server), or 2
for both local and remote mode.
returns
Number Server operation mode.
_getVersion()
Returns the GATC version number.
returns
String GATC version number.
_initData()
Initializes or re-initializes the GATC (Google Analytics Tracker Code) object.
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12345-1");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
_link()
_link(targetUrl, useHash)
This method works in conjunction with the _setDomainName() and _setAllowLinker()
methods to enable cross-domain user tracking. The _link() method passes the cookies
from this site to another via URL parameters (HTTP GET). It also changes the document.location and redirects
the user to the new URL.
<a href="http://www.newsite.com" onclick="pageTracker._link('http://www.newsite.com');return false;">Go to our sister site</a>
You must also enable linking on the target site (pageTracker._setAllowLinker(true);) in
order for link to work properly.
parameters
String targetUrl URL of target site to send cookie values to.
String useHash Set to true for passing tracking code variables by
using the # anchortag separator rather than the default ? query string
separator. (Currently this behavior is for internal Google properties only.)
_linkByPost()
_linkByPost(formObject, useHash)
This method works in conjunction with the _setDomainName() and _setAllowLinker()
methods to enable cross-domain user tracking. The _linkByPost() method passes
the cookies from the referring form to another site in a string appended to the action value of
the form (HTTP POST). This method is typically used when tracking user behavior from one site to
a 3rd-party shopping cart site, but can also be used to send cookie data to other domains in pop-ups
or in iFrames.
<form action="http://www.shoppingcartsite.com/myService/formProcessor.php"
name="f" method="post" onsubmit="pageTracker._linkByPost(this)">
. . .
</form>
In addition, _setAllowLinker() must be set to true on the destination web page
in order for linking to work.
parameters
HTMLFormElement formObject Form object encapsulating the POST
request.
String useHash Set to true for passing tracking code variables by
using the # anchortag separator rather than the default ? query string
separator.
_setAllowAnchor()
Allows the # sign to be used as a query string delimiter in campaign tracking.
This option is disabled by default. Typically, campaign tracking URLs are
comprised of the question mark (?) separator and the ampersand (&) as delimiters
for the key/value pairs that make up the query. By enabling this option, your
campaign tracking URLs can use a pound (#) sign instead of the question mark (?).
http://mysite.net/index.html?source=In+House#method=email#offer_type=Fall+email+offers
pageTracker._setAllowAnchor(true);
parameters
Boolean enable If this parameter is set to true, then campaign will
use anchors. Else, campaign will use search strings.
_setAllowHash()
Sets the allow domain hash flag. By default, this value is set to true.
The domain hashing functionality in Google Analytics creates a hash
value from your domain, and uses this number to check cookie integrity
for visitors. If you have multiple sub-domains, such as
example1.example.com and example2.example.com,
and you want to track user behavior across both of these sub-domains,
you would turn off domain hashing so that the cookie integrity check
will not reject a user cookie coming from one domain to another. Additionally,
you can turn this feature off to optimize per-page tracking performance.
parameters
Boolean enable If this parameter is set to true, then domain hashing
is enabled. Else, domain hashing is disabled. True by default.
_setAllowLinker()
Sets the linker functionality flag as part of enabling
cross-domain user tracking. By default, this method
is set to false and linking is disabled. See also _link(),
_linkByPost(), and _setDomainName() methods
to enable cross-domain tracking.
pageTracker._setAllowLinker(true);
parameters
Boolean enable If this parameter is set to true, then linker is
enabled. Else, linker is disabled.
_setCampContentKey()
_setCampContentKey(newCampContentKey)
Sets the campaign ad content key. The campaign content key is used to retrieve
the ad content (description) of your advertising campaign from your campaign URLs.
Use this function on the landing page defined in your campaign.
For example, suppose you have an ad on another website with this URL to your site:
http://mysite.net/index.html?source=giganoshopper.com&method=referral&offer_type=Christmas+specials&description=Garden+gloves
In this url, the key "description" delineates the content supplied in the URL for that
campaign. (These terms and phrases appear under the Ad Content column in the Campaign
detail page in the Traffic Sources report.) To use that key as your customized campaign
content key, you would set:
pageTracker._setCampContentKey("description");
parameters
String newCampContentKey New campaign content key to set.
_setCampMediumKey()
_setCampMediumKey(newCampMedKey)
Sets the campaign medium key, which is used to retrieve the medium from
your campaign URLs. The medium appears as a segment option in the Campaigns
report.
For example, suppose you have an ad on another website with this URL to your site:
http://mysite.net/index.html?source=giganoshopper.com&method=ad&offer_type=Christmas+specials&description=Garden+gloves
In this url, the key "method" delineates the medium in the URL for that
campaign. To use that key as your customized campaign content key, you would set:
pageTracker._setCampMediumKey("method");
parameters
String newCampMedKey Campaign medium key to set.
_setCampNameKey()
_setCampNameKey(newCampNameKey)
Sets the campaign name key. The campaign name key is used to retrieve
the name of your advertising campaign from your campaign URLs. You
would use this function on any page that you want to track click-campaigns on.
For example, suppose you send an email to registered users about a special
offer, and the link to that offer looks like:
http://mysite.net/index.html?source=In+House&method=email&offer_type=Fall+email+offers
In this url, the key "offer_type" delineates the name supplied in the URL for that
campaign. (This is the name that appears in the list of Campaigns in the
Traffic Sources report.) To use that key as your customized campaign name
key, you would set:
pageTracker._setCampNameKey("offer_type");
parameters
String newCampNameKey Campaign name key.
_setCampNOKey()
_setCampNOKey(newCampNOKey)
Sets the campaign no-override key variable, which is used to retrieve the campaign no-override value from the URL. By default, this variable and its value are not set. For campaign tracking and conversion measurement, this means that, by default, the most recent impression is the campaign that is credited in your conversion tracking. If you prefer to associate the first-most impressions to a conversion, you would set this method to a specific key, and in the situation where you use custom campaign variables, you would use this method to set the variable name for campaign overrides. The no-override value prevents the campaign data from being over-written by similarly-defined campaign URLs that the visitor might also click on.
If you have an ad on another website with this URL to your site:
http://mysite.net/index.html?source=giganoshopper.com&method=referral&offer_type=Christmas+specials&description=Garden+gloves&noo=1234
In this url, the key "noo" delineates the no-override value in the URL for that
campaign. To use that key as your customized campaign no-override key, you would set:
pageTracker._setCampNOKey("noo");
parameters
String newCampNOKey Campaign no-override key to set.
_setCampSourceKey()
_setCampSourceKey(newCampSrcKey)
Sets the campaign source key, which is used to retrieve the campaign source from
the URL. "Source" appears as a segment option in the Campaigns report.
For example, suppose you have an ad on another website with this URL to your site:
http://mysite.net/index.html?source=giganoshopper.com&method=referral&offer_type=Christmas+specials&description=Garden+gloves
In this url, the key "source" delineates the source in the URL for that
campaign. To use that key as your customized campaign source key, you would set:
pageTracker._setCampSourceKey("source");
parameters
String newCampSrcKey Campaign source key to set.
_setCampTermKey()
_setCampTermKey(newCampTermKey)
Sets the campaign term key, which is used to retrieve the campaign keywords from
the URL.
For example, suppose you have a paid ad on a search engine tagged as follow:
http://mysite.net/index.html?source=weSearch4You.com&method=paidSearchAd&offer_type=Christmas+specials&description=Garden+gloves&term=garden+tools
In this url, the key "term" delineates the keyword terms in the URL for that
campaign. To use that key as your customized campaign term key, you would set:
pageTracker._setCampTermKey("term");
parameters
String newCampTermKey Term key to set.
_setCampaignTrack()
_setCampaignTrack(enable)
Sets the campaign tracking flag. By default, campaign tracking is enabled
for standard Google Analytics set up. If you wish to disable campaign
tracking and the associated cookies that are set for campaign tracking,
you can use this method.
parameters
Boolean enable True by default, which enables campaign
tracking. If set to false, campaign tracking is disabled.
_setClientInfo()
Sets the browser tracking module. By default, Google Analytics tracks
browser information from your visitors and provides more data about
your visitor's browser settings that you get with a simple HTTP request.
If you desire, you can turn this tracking off by setting the parameter
to false. If you do this, any browser data will not be tracked and
cannot be recovered at a later date, so use this feature carefully.
parameters
Boolean enable Defaults to true, and browser
tracking is enabled. If set to false, browser tracking is disabled.
_setCookiePath()
_setCookiePath(newCookiePath)
Sets the new cookie path for your site. By default, Google Analytics
sets the cookie path to the root level (/). In most situations, this
is the appropriate option and works correctly with the tracking code
you install on your website, blog, or corporate web directory. However,
in a few cases where user access is restricted to only a sub-directory
of a domain, this method can resolve tracking issues by setting a
sub-directory as the default path for all tracking.
Typically, you would use this if your data is not being tracked and
you subscribed to a blog service and only have access to your defined
sub-directory, or if you are on a Corporate or University network and
only have access to your home directory. In these cases, using a terminal
slash is the recommended practice for defining the sub-directory.
pageTracker._setCookiePath("/~username/");
pageTracker._setCookiePath("/myBlogDirectory/");
parameters
String newCookiePath New cookie path to set.
_setCookieTimeout()
_setCookieTimeout(newDefaultTimeout)
Sets the campaign tracking cookie expiration time in seconds. By default,
campaign tracking is set for 6 months. In this way, you can determine
over a 6-month period whether visitors to your site convert based on
a specific campaign. However, your business might have a longer or shorter
campaign time-frame, so you can use this method to adjust the campaign
tracking for that purpose.
pageTracker._setCookieTimeout("3152600"); //number of seconds in 1 year
parameters
String newDefaultTimeout New default cookie expiration time to set. Pass in as a string and it is converted to an integer.
_setDetectFlash()
Sets the Flash detection flag. By default, Google Analytics tracks
Flash player information from your visitors and provides detailed data
about your visitor's Flash player settings.
If you desire, you can turn this tracking off by setting the parameter
to false. If you do this, any Flash player data will not be tracked and
cannot be recovered at a later date, so use this feature carefully.
parameters
Boolean enable Default is true and Flash
detection is enabled. False disables Flash detection..
_setDetectTitle()
Sets the title detection flag. By default, page title detection for
your visitors is on. This information appears in the Contents section
under "Content by Title."
If you desire, you can turn this tracking off by setting the parameter
to false. You could do this if your website has no defined page titles
and the Content by Title report has all content grouped into the "(not
set)" list. You could also turn this off if all your pages have particularly
long titles. If you do this, any page titles that are defined in your
website will not be displayed in the "Content by Title" reports. This
information cannot be recovered at a later date once it is disabled.
parameters
Boolean enable Defaults to true, and title
detection is enabled. If set to false, title detection is disabled.
_setDomainName()
_setDomainName(newDomainName)
Sets the domain name for cookies. There are three modes to this method:
("auto" | "none" | [domain]). By default, the method is set to auto,
which attempts to resolve the domain name based on the location object
in the DOM.
Set this method explicitly to your domain name if your website
spans multiple hostnames, and you want to track visitor behavior
across all hosts. For example, if you have two hosts:
server1.example.com and server2.example.com, you would set the
domain name as follows:
pageTracker._setDomainName(".example.com");
Be sure to use a leading "." in front of your domain name, as illustrated
here. The leading period ensures that the cookie will be accessible across
all hosts. Otherwise, the cookie is accessible only in example.com.
Set this method to none in the following two situations:
You want to disable tracking across hosts.
You want to set up tracking across two separate domains. Cross-
domain tracking requires configuration of the _setAllowLinker()
and _link methods.
pageTracker._setDomainName("none");
parameters
String newDomainName New default domain name to set.
_setLocalGifPath()
_setLocalGifPath(newLocalGifPath)
Sets the local path for the Urchin GIF file. Use this method
if you are running the Urchin tracking software on your local
servers. The path you specific here is used by the
_setLocalServerMode() and
_setLocalRemoteServerMode() methods to determine
the path to the local server itself.
parameters
String newLocalGifPath Path to GIF file on the local server.
_setLocalRemoteServerMode()
_setLocalRemoteServerMode()
Invoke this method to send your tracking data both to a local
server and to the Google Analytics backend servers. You would
use this method if you are running the Urchin tracking software
on your local servers and want to track data locally as well as
via Google Analytics servers. In this scenario, the
path to the local server is set by _setLocalGifPath().
_setLocalServerMode()
Invoke this method to send your tracking data to a local
server only. You would use this method if you are running
the Urchin tracking software on your local servers and want all
tracking data to be sent to your servers. In this scenario, the
path to the local server is set by _setLocalGifPath().
_setRemoteServerMode()
Default installations of Google Analytics send tracking data to
the Google Analytics server. You would use this method if you have
installed the Urchin software for your website and want to send
particular tracking data only to the Google Analytics server.
_setSampleRate()
Sets the new sample rate. If your website is particularly
large and subject to heavy traffic spikes, then setting the
sample rate ensures un-interrupted report tracking.
Sampling in Google Analytics occurs consistently across unique
visitors, so there is integrity in trending and reporting even
when sampling is enabled, because unique visitors remain included
or excluded from the sample, as set from the initiation of sampling.
pageTracker._setSampleRate("80"); //sets sampling rate to 80 percent
parameters
String newRate New sample rate to set. Provide a numeric string as a whole percentage.
_setSessionTimeout()
_setSessionTimeout(newTimeout)
Sets the new session timeout in seconds. By default, session
timeout is set to 30 minutes (1800 seconds). Session timeout
is used to compute visits, since a visit ends after 30 minutes
of browser inactivity or upon browser exit. If you want to change
the definition of a "session" for your particular needs, you
can pass in the number of seconds to define a new value. This
will impact the Visits reports in every section where the number
of visits are calculated, and where visits are used in computing
other values. For example, the number of visits will increase
if you shorten the session timeout, and will decrease if you
increase the session timeout.
parameters
String newTimeout New session timeout to set in seconds.
_setVar()
Sets a user-defined value. The value you supply appears as an option
in the Segment pull-down for the Traffic Sources reports. You can
use this value to provide additional segmentation on users to your
website. For example, you could have a login page or a form that triggers
a value based on a visitor's input, such as a preference the visitor
chooses, or a privacy option. This variable is then updated in the
cookie for that visitor.
parameters
String newVal New user defined value to set.
_trackEvent()
_trackEvent(action, opt_label, opt_value)
This method use is deprecated. Constructs and sends the event tracking call to GATC via the event tracking object.
parameters
String eventType The type name for the event.
String opt_label An optional descriptor for the event.
String opt_value An optional value to be aggregated with
the event.
returns
Boolean whether the event was successfully sent.
_trackEvent()
_trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value)
Constructs and sends the event tracking call to the Google Analytics Tracking Code. Use this to track visitor behavior on your website that is not related to a web page visit, such as interaction with a Flash video movie control or any user event that does not trigger a page request.
parameters
String eventType The type name for the event.
String opt_label An optional descriptor for the event.
String opt_value An optional value to be aggregated with
the event.
returns
Boolean whether the event was successfully sent.
_trackPageview()
_trackPageview(opt_pageURL)
Main logic for GATC (Google Analytic Tracker Code). If linker
functionalities are enabled, it attempts to extract cookie values from the URL.
Otherwise, it tries to extract cookie values from document.cookie.
It also updates or creates cookies as necessary, then writes them back to the
document object. Gathers all the appropriate metrics to send to the
UCFE (Urchin Collector Front-end).
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12345-1");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview("/home/landingPage");
parameters
String opt_pageURL Optional parameter to indicate what page
URL to track metrics under. When using this option, use a beginning
slash (/) to indicate the page URL.
_trackTrans()
Sends both the transaction and item data to the Google Analytics server. This method
should be called after _trackPageview(), and used in conjunction with the
_addItem() and addTrans() methods. It should be called after
items and transaction elements have been set up.
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-12345-1");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
pageTracker._addTrans(
"1234", // order ID - required
"Womens Apparel", // affiliation or store name
"11.99", // total - required
"1.29", // tax
"15.00", // shipping
"San Jose", // city
"California", // state or province
"USA" // country
);
pageTracker._addItem(
"1234", // order ID - required
"DD44", // SKU/code
"T-Shirt", // product name
"Olive Medium", // category or variation
"11.99", // unit price - required
"1" // quantity - required
);
pageTracker._trackTrans();