Permalink structure for analytics

  • aguinness

    (@aguinness)


    9 years, 8 months ago

    Hi. So the site I’m managing currently has a permalink structure of:
    /%category%/%postname%/

    We’re trying to improve our Google Analytics tracking so that it’s more granular, in that we can followed traffic based on:
    – Primary category
    – Secondary category
    – Author (we have multiple writers on our site)
    – Date

    My thinking was to simply incorporate /%author%/%year%/%monthnum%/ into permalink structure, since GA most easily tracks based on URL slug. But every person I’ve seen discuss permalink structure said not to do that as it will wreck SEO. Should I listen? If so, what alternatives do I have within WP and GA to track traffic based on the variables above?

    • This topic was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by aguinness.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Anonymous User 907751

    (@anonymized-907751)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    Changing permalinks isn’t always fun, and yes, it could damage your site traffic.

    • Search engines will need to recrawl through your new sitemap, and re-index new pages.
    • Websites linking to your articles, will now potentially link to broken links

    That said, I don’t know the situation of your website, how old it is, how many pages you’ve got in your sitemap – but if it’s in the range of ~30 then make sure to 301 redirect (.htaccess) all the old permalinks, to the new ones.

    There are a few plugins that build the RegEx formula for your old permalink to your new permalink, I’ve used one in the past that’s called Dean’s Permalink Migration that I can recommend (though for some reason I cannot seem to find it).

    Also, have a read at this recently published article.

    Thread Starter aguinness

    (@aguinness)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    Apparently, that article is 403’d at the moment.

    Our sitemap now has about 1200 pages (it turned 5 a couple months ago). My plan is not to impose analytics on old pages at this point but newer ones if the mechanisms are too cumbersome to implement cleanly.

    That said, if permalink structural change is not the answer, how do we impose analytics tracking based on author, date, and secondary category if they’re not in the slug?

    Anonymous User 907751

    (@anonymized-907751)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    What about add ?, as in /%category%/%postname%/?%author?%year?%monthnum, etc?

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by Anonymous User 907751.
    Thread Starter aguinness

    (@aguinness)

    9 years, 7 months ago

    That could work. I’ll discuss it with my GA person. I’m assuming that ? is a string extension that goes at the end of the link?

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