Remap manager and URL query strings

Squiz Matrix Support
1

Hi,


I'm trying to work out the best way to log traffic that comes from a particular external source, by providing special URLs for existing pages on our site.



We are using Google Analytics for log analysis.



My initial idea was to provide URLs of the form 'http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=foo' so we can filter out traffic with a particular query string ('client=foo') in GA.



The fly in the ointment is that the canonical URLs for the pages in question are set up using the Remap manager, and the remapping process apparently strips any query string.



The target URLs contain dates and could be unstable, hence the remapping.



Any ideas or insights?

2

If I understand correctly, you can't add the remap through remap manager?
You should be able to insert direct to the DB to get it working.


    insert into sq_ast_lookup_remap values 
    ('http://www.url.com/blah', 
    'http://www.url.com/blah?param=this',
    SYSDATE + 730,
    1);


Depending on your matrix version you might need to insert into more or less columns.
3

[quote]
If I understand correctly, you can't add the remap through remap manager?

You should be able to insert direct to the DB to get it working.


    insert into sq_ast_lookup_remap values 
    ('http://www.url.com/blah', 
    'http://www.url.com/blah?param=this',
    SYSDATE + 730,
    1);


Depending on your matrix version you might need to insert into more or less columns.
[/quote]

It's the URL that's being remapped /from/ that contains the query string. And that query string is not added on to the the URL that it is mapped /to/.
4

just use http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=foo, you should stay on the same page as the URL varible is not defined. But it should be recoded in GA.

5

[quote]
just use http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=foo, you should stay on the same page as the URL varible is not defined. But it should be recoded in GA.

[/quote]



The problem is that GA never gets to see this URL. When it is remapped by the CMS (i.e. by issuing an HTTP redirect), the query string is deleted. So there is no query string when the client loads the HTML and the GA JS code etc etc.

6

[quote]
The problem is that GA never gets to see this URL. When it is remapped by the CMS (i.e. by issuing an HTTP redirect), the query string is deleted. So there is no query string when the client loads the HTML and the GA JS code etc etc.

[/quote]

From my testing, it’s not remapped to http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=f

7

[quote]
From my testing, it’s not remapped to http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=f

[/quote]



Sorry, perhaps I wasn’t clear. We have manually added a remap, e.g. from



http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin



to



http://www.site.com/newsletter/december/aspirin



What happens is



http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=foo



gets remapped to



http://www.site.com/newsletter/december/aspirin



i.e. the Matrix remap code strips the query portion.

8

just add the remapped urls with the string in remap manager, it works for me.
old url http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=f

new url http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=f?client=foo

9

[quote]
just add the remapped urls with the string in remap manager, it works for me.

old url http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=f

new url http://www.site.com/our_docs/aspirin?client=f?client=foo

[/quote]



Thanks, that works on our system too.



It’s a little inflexible (have to prespecify a fixed query string by the looks of it) but it will do the job I think.