Q and A: Do I need to use duplicate pages or redirects to track ad conversions?
Dear Kalena...
Thank you for your answer to my previous question. Thank goodness there is someone out there that knows what their doing and can make a layman like me understand the reply! I have got rid of the redirect, which I was not even aware was there.
I am confused regarding Google's attitude to the following scenario. I want to track the response we receive to newspaper and magazine advertising by using a tail on our website address, i.e www.macoles.com/jh. As I understand it Google will downgrade the site because the content is identical to the main default page and that having now learnt about redirects, could I use the redirect option safely to effectively monitor the advertising in the same way? Or would Google still "frown" on this as bad policy. Does it make any difference whether I use either scenario, I.e., A) Have duplicate page content at /jh or B) Have a redirect on /jh to the default page.
I have asked various 'experts' on this and have been given contradicting information on this point, and have not really been able to get a definitive answer by researching online.
Adrian
Kalena's Answer:
Dear Adrian
You don't need to create a separate page to track your ads. You simply need to use a tracking URL in your advertisements such as www.macoles.com?source=magazineJH. You can change the content after "source=" to whatever you like, as long as it helps you differentiate the source of traffic. This is how people running pay per click campaigns track the performance of their ads.
These tracking URLs still take people to your home page, but the unique address allows you to monitor how many people entered your site through a particular ad. You'll need to make sure your site log file analysis program supports tracking URLs and doesn't just lump visitors to www.macoles.com and www.macoles.com?source=magazineJH in together. Your site host should be able to assist you in setting up your site analytics to support this. If you don't have a site analytics program or can't get it to work with your existing one, I highly recommend ClickTracks.
Thank you for your answer to my previous question. Thank goodness there is someone out there that knows what their doing and can make a layman like me understand the reply! I have got rid of the redirect, which I was not even aware was there.
I am confused regarding Google's attitude to the following scenario. I want to track the response we receive to newspaper and magazine advertising by using a tail on our website address, i.e www.macoles.com/jh. As I understand it Google will downgrade the site because the content is identical to the main default page and that having now learnt about redirects, could I use the redirect option safely to effectively monitor the advertising in the same way? Or would Google still "frown" on this as bad policy. Does it make any difference whether I use either scenario, I.e., A) Have duplicate page content at /jh or B) Have a redirect on /jh to the default page.
I have asked various 'experts' on this and have been given contradicting information on this point, and have not really been able to get a definitive answer by researching online.
Adrian
Kalena's Answer:
Dear Adrian
You don't need to create a separate page to track your ads. You simply need to use a tracking URL in your advertisements such as www.macoles.com?source=magazineJH. You can change the content after "source=" to whatever you like, as long as it helps you differentiate the source of traffic. This is how people running pay per click campaigns track the performance of their ads.
These tracking URLs still take people to your home page, but the unique address allows you to monitor how many people entered your site through a particular ad. You'll need to make sure your site log file analysis program supports tracking URLs and doesn't just lump visitors to www.macoles.com and www.macoles.com?source=magazineJH in together. Your site host should be able to assist you in setting up your site analytics to support this. If you don't have a site analytics program or can't get it to work with your existing one, I highly recommend ClickTracks.
Labels: search engine optimization (seo)
2 Comments:
Kalena Hi
Thanks for that. I am a bit confused though. It seems I would need to put the whole line in to make this work? i.e, www.macoles.com?source=magazineJH. This seems very cumbersome for users to enter?
Please clarify.
Regards
Adrian
No Adrian, you can make it whatever you want. You can make it http://www.macoles.com?source=jh or simply http://www.macoles.com?jh if you like. Just make sure you include the query string "?" so that it loads your existing home page and not a completely new page.
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