Correct configuration of multiple Analytics trackers per page, spanning domains and subdomains

Posted by Eliot Shepard on Pro Webmasters See other posts from Pro Webmasters or by Eliot Shepard
Published on 2012-06-05T21:32:07Z Indexed on 2012/06/05 22:47 UTC
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My company publishes sites on a somewhat convoluted domain structure, and we're having trouble getting accurate numbers in Analytics when we have multiple trackers on the page.

We publish under two brands (A, B). Each brand has a "national" site at A.com, B.com, as well as per-city "local" sites at eg. ny.A.com, la.A.com, sf.A.com, etc.

Right now we're trying to track in these dimensions:

  • Full network (A.com, ny.A.com, B.com, la.B.com, etc.)
  • All sites in brand (A.com, ny.A.com, la.A.com, etc.)
  • Inidividual site (ny.A.com)

Here are the commands we're using on an individual site:

_gaq.push(
    ['t0._setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXX-1'],  // full network
    ['t0._setDomainName', 'none'],
    ['t0._setAllowLinker', true],
    ['t0._trackPageview'],
    ['t1._trackPageLoadTime'],
    ['t1._setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXX-2'],  // brand
    ['t1._setDomainName', 'none'],
    ['t1._setAllowLinker', true],
    ['t1._trackPageview'],
    ['t1._trackPageLoadTime'],
    ['t2._setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXX-3'],  // individual
    ['t2._setDomainName', 'none'],
    ['t2._setAllowLinker', true],
    ['t2._trackPageview'],
    ['t2._trackPageLoadTime']
);

We send the same commands to each account because we've had strange results when trackers were configured differently in the past. However, right now we're seeing inflated numbers for uniques on all three trackers.

What is the correct way to configure this setup? Thanks for your time.

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