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What happened to Smugmug and Google Analytics on 8/15/12?

ChancyRatChancyRat Registered Users Posts: 2,141 Major grins
edited January 14, 2014 in SmugMug Support
Relocating this discussion to its own thread. I asked on http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=244422:
One more question, sort of related. Did something happen in Smugmug on August 15, 2012?
At that time my GA stats were reduced by something like 75%, and they never recovered.
Sorry to be so late on asking. :smack
And Michael replied, nothing.

But, something had to have happened. It's not possible to see a couple of years of stats at one level, then Zoom drop by 75% and stay that way for over a year. Pattern is definitive and undeniable. And some folks on DG identified the same time period.

How about:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=226434&highlight=google+analytics
Post #1:
But look at the period around 8/12-8/15, in analytics it's a big jump, in Smugmug there's nothing at all. Then look on 9/5 in Smumug, which had a big spike and not even a blip in Analytics.
with a graph from GA that parallels my report.

How about: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=225272&highlight=google+analytics.
Posted initially on 8/19/12:
Not so much broke but changed. We did some re-working on old tracking code. For StatCounter try to use the standard, non xHTML version as doctype might be an issue. You may also want to look into Google Analytics. We did some updating to it's code as well so it should track better.
__________________
Eric
Support Hero and Customeister
http://www.smugmug.com/help

And: post 24 on:
I am still having the same problem described, but it is with Google Analytics instead of Statcounter. It stopped tracking individual page hits as of Aug. 14th/15th and is not back up and running yet. I have been using Analytics for 6+months with no problems other than as of Aug 14th. Any idea how to fix it?

Still searching for clues:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=227840&highlight=sitemap+google
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=223491&highlight=indexing+google
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=226170&highlight=google+analytics
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=226170&highlight=stats+analytics

Has anyone else noticed a pattern shift since mid August 2012? Or noticed it a heck of a lot earlier than I have, and done something different?

Thanks.

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    bwgbwg Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 2,119 SmugMug Employee
    edited January 14, 2014
    There appears to have been a GA issue between 13 August and 1 September 2012.

    smugmug.com
    i-mK3spz5.png

    however, the stats for my personal smugmug website don't show any funkiness during that timeframe
    i-wVpdVtq.png

    so what likely happened, based on the fact that you were embedding the GA script instead of using the built-in GA tracking (which I was), is that the changes we made affected user embedded GA (as well as our own apparently). Being this was over a year ago, I don't know what change was made off the top of my head.

    Now that you are using the built-in GA, the tracking should be accurate.
    Pedal faster
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    ChancyRatChancyRat Registered Users Posts: 2,141 Major grins
    edited January 14, 2014
    Thank you so much for doing some checking.
    I do remember vaguely "embedding the GA script" but that would have been in 2007.
    I also had the code in the SM settings field but I don't remember when I added it.
    It sounds like you are saying that mistake would have maintained a 75% reduction in hits for over a year.

    Me to me again: :smack
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    ChancyRatChancyRat Registered Users Posts: 2,141 Major grins
    edited January 14, 2014
    In case I just shot myself in the foot: I kind of just said go ahead to Google analytics and clicked to upgrade/update to universal analytics.
    That transition process isn't complete yet, might take another day, and when it does complete there will be a new code to put into SM.
    Is this a problem for Smugmug?
    https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/upgrade/?hl=en_US
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    Luc De JaegerLuc De Jaeger Registered Users Posts: 139 Major grins
    edited January 14, 2014
    bwg wrote: »
    There appears to have been a GA issue between 13 August and 1 September 2012.

    There was a drop between August 15 and August 21, 2012 on my Page Views as seen on my Statcounter stats. Page views went back to normal on August 22 and after that day. However, the unique views did not change profoundly, only the page views.

    I'd not worry about it, it's too long ago and did not last more than a week mwink.gif

    Luc
    http://lucdejaeger.smugmug.com/
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    ChancyRatChancyRat Registered Users Posts: 2,141 Major grins
    edited January 14, 2014
    Luc De Jaeger wrote: »
    There was a drop between August 15 and August 21, 2012 on my Page Views as seen on my Statcounter stats. Page views went back to normal on August 22 and after that day. However, the unique views did not change profoundly, only the page views.

    I'd not worry about it, it's too long ago and did not last more than a week mwink.gif

    Luc

    Thanks Luc. For me the drop lasted from 8/15/12, through the current day.
    Now that I've unveiled, and put the code in properly, we'll see what trend emerges.
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