How to prevent Google Website Optimizer from making Google Analytics spike Direct Traffic and lower Bounce Rate?

Posted by Scott on Pro Webmasters See other posts from Pro Webmasters or by Scott
Published on 2011-11-22T20:45:17Z Indexed on 2011/11/23 2:10 UTC
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google-analytics

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JavaScript

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google-website-optimizer

I am using Google Website Optimizer (GWO) and Google Analytics.

Whenever a person (Google Website Optimizer) does a javascript redirect, Google Analytics will change the referrer. When the referrer changes, the traffic source becomes yourself and is changed to Direct Traffic.

For Example: A visitor goes to google: searches for my great service. Clicks the link that goes to website page: /home/ At this point, Google Analytics tracks the referrer as Google.

However, /home/ has a GWO javacript redirect to a battery of A/B tests. /home-1/ or /home-2/ or /home-3/

When the redirect from /home/ occurs to /home-1/, google analytics on the /home-1/ page now thinks the referrer is yourself and converts the referrer to Direct Traffic since the Direct Traffic bucket is the unknown.

I'm really surprised that GWO and GA do this when they both come from google.

Now, How does one fix this to prevent the overwrite of the referrer using GWO?

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