How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – Google Analytics

How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – Google Analytics

Date: 2010.02.08 | Category: Google Analytics, Google Analytics Hacks | Tags: google,Google Analytics,hacks,Search Engines,Searching,Tools,Uniform Resource Locator

There is nothing more frustrating than trying to work out which page of a site is the one actually referring to yours. Google Analytics tells us the name of the domain, but not the exact referring URL. There is a filter that can be used to give you what you need.

Field A -> Extract A – Referral (.*)

Field B -> Extract B – (Leave Blank)

Output To -> Constructor – User Defined $A1

See image to help.

To view, go to visitor reports and select ‘user-defined’

14 Responses to “How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – Google Analytics”

Nikki Rae 10/02/08 20:47

RT @analyticsgirl: How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – Google Analytics http://bit.ly/9Fqs19
RockTheBoatMKTG 10/02/08 20:53

Great! How to Find The Real Referring URL in Google Analytics http://bit.ly/c00Yyn
Ian Miller 10/02/08 20:56

RT @analyticsgirl: How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – Google Analytics http://bit.ly/9Fqs19
Nikki Rae 10/02/08 20:57

@jtex316 You'll know this anyway http://www.analyticstraining.co.uk/2010/02/how-to-find-out-the-real-referring-url-google-analytics/
Morgan Vichard 10/02/08 21:40

RT @AnalyticsGirl: RT @analyticsgirl: How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – Google Analytics http://bit.ly/9Fqs19
Arkovi 10/02/08 21:57

RT @RockTheBoatMKTG: Great! How to Find The Real Referring URL in Google Analytics http://bit.ly/c00Yyn (This is helpful!)
Blano 10/02/08 21:57

RT @RockTheBoatMKTG: Great! How to Find The Real Referring URL in Google Analytics http://bit.ly/c00Yyn (This is helpful!)
Ela 10/02/09 12:08

Did all that but I can’t see in the visitor reports, user-defined section nothing but “(not set)” and “aucun”. If 1,038 visits used 2 user defined values, you have any idea what could be the problem?
admin 10/02/09 13:15

Hi Ela,

The (not set) and presumably (aucun) visits are all the visits that don’t have user-defined values set against them – which for you at the moment will be all of them. If you only added the filter last night, then you may not see the full urls until today. Let me know if you have any further problems.

Nikki Rae @analyticsgirl
Daniel Peden 10/02/24 10:26

Do you find that the majority of these return as (not set) – maybe its just UK sites, but I have a client who is getting traffic for ‘facebook’. None of these organic visits are showing up in this filter.

Bizarre!
@analyticsgirl 10/02/24 13:26

Hi Daniel,

You found my blog .
If the referrer is a keyword, it won’t show using this filter as this is just for referring traffic sources. So a keyterm ‘facebook’ will not show any results. Also, you will see (not set) against any other referrer source e.g. google organic where it is not seen as a referring site by GA.

Does that make sense?
Nick Light 10/03/15 16:52

How to Find Out The Real #Referring URL – #Google #Analytics – http://bit.ly/bnNL0p
Atelier SEO 10/06/03 10:04

RT @analyticsgirl: How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – Google Analytics http://bit.ly/9Fqs19
Steve Larkins 12/04/08 09:36

RT @analyticsgirl: How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – #Google #Analytics http://t.co/9AeQ4LQt

How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – Google Analytics

14 Responses to “How to Find Out The Real Referring URL – Google Analytics”

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