Check if Google Analytics code is properly installed and working on a specific webpage

to your client you will understand the importance of this situation.

So it becomes highly important that you ensure all the pages have analytics code installed properly and are contributing to the website’s traffic. People will tell you to "view the sourcecode of the page and look if Google analytics code is correctly installed"You may not be a master programmer so you may not instantly understand the small differences in code that renders the Google Analytics tracking code unusable.

 

There is a very easy to use tool on Analytics software that can help us confirm if a particular webpage has Google Analytics code installed correctly. Using the Left Navigation Navigate to : Standard reports > Real Time > Overview

You will see a page somewhat like this one. Here is a snapshot of one of my websites when there are no visitors.

 

Unlike regular reporting where Google shows the traffic report with a 24 hour delay, real time reports will tell you instantly if someone a visitor is accessing a page. We are going to use this feature to test the code.

 

In this case I am studying three URLs from a website. (While data is real the websites used are for the sake of citing examples)

www.domain.com/
Www.domain.com/inner-page/
www.domain.com/blog/sample-post/

Here is the snapshot after I open all three URLs mentioned above.

 

Then I open all the three pages to be tested in a browser. You can do this in multiple browsers if you wish to see different visitors. You can now notice that there are 3 visitors on the website. One of them is a real visitor while w2 ere recorded from

www.domain.com/

Www.domain.com/

inner-page/ But no page with of this format -

www.domain.com/blog/sample-post/was tracked. This clearly implies that blog section on my website does not have the Google Analytics installed correctly. So I need to verify what is wrong with my code and fix it to get the traffic reports from those pages.

 

Possible Errors in your Google Analytics script.

1. Code formatting error when copying Google Analytics code from Microsoft Word / Web Mailbox / Messenger window etc.
   Consider this example Notice the tags highlighted in red. Those were never a part of the tracking code provided by Google. In my case copying the code from gmail added those extra tags from Gmail’s internal formatting. Ideally, you should always send the code in a .txt file or copy it directly from Google Analytics when using it on the website.
2. Pasting the tracking code after Body Tag.
   Though it is suggested that we put the code in the header or beginning of the body tag, I prefer to use the tracking code before the tag. I want the tracking code to load only after my page elements load. It improves user experience and it reduces false positives.
3. Using the wrong Tracking ID.
   In many cases, people have multiple domains in their Google Analytics account. It is very possible they may add the code of one site to another. So even though your code is correct the traffic will show up elsewhere and not where you expect to see it.