ONCE AND FOR ALL! LET’S DO THIS!

Google Analytics will report the ORIGINAL referrer to the ORIGINAL requested page if a server-side 301 (or 302) redirect is in place.

Let’s shake out an example.

You own mySite.com and have a page called unicorns.html. You decide that you want to make a better page for this, so you make “DOUBLE-unicorns.html”.

Then you realize that you want to remove the original unicorns.html because it is lame compared to your double unicorns page, but you want to make sure that people who linked to that old page see the new, awesome double unicorns page. Because you’re a good, SEO-conscious person, you do a 301 redirect from “/unicorns.html” to “http://www.mySite.com/DOUBLE-unicorns.html”.

OK, breathe…here we go.

Let’s say that the site unicornUniverse.com loved your original page, and had a link on it. Now that your 301 redirect is present, what happens when someone clicks on that link at unicornUniverse.com? What shows up as a referrer?

Yes: unicornUniverse.com is the referrer! And what is your landing page? DOUBLE-unicorns.html is your landing page.

This happens because the browser never actually sees the first file: the server redirects your browser and the field of the DOM that monitors your referrer isn’t updated. This field is referred to by the document.referrer variable, and a quick cheat to check what’s in it is to type the following in your location bar:

javascript:alert(document.referrer);

If you’re a browser ninja, you might have firebug installed, and you can look at the DOM map there to see the same thing.

Let’s take another example:

What if someone searches for “super awesome unicorn page” on Google, just MINUTES after you put your redirect up? Well, Google hasn’t had time to find your redirect and update the URL in their index! OH MY! What will happen?

All is well in the world (almost, see the last paragraph below for what’s not well in the world), because when someone clicks the link to http://www.mySite.com/unicorns.html in the Google search results, they will be 301 redirected to http://www.mySite.com/DOUBLE-unicorns.html. Referrer? google.com (the document.referrer will actually read: http://www.google.com/search?q=super+awesome+unicorn+page — that is how it knows your search engine keywords). And again, DOUBLE-unicorns.html will be the landing page.

So, direct is direct, search is search, referred is referred.

Exceptions:

There are times when a 301 redirect will NOT preserve referrer information, but they are rare. The most common example is when an https page links through a redirect on a non-https page. Again, drop the javascript above into your browser to audit this on your own site if this is a concern. If that script tells you the right referrer information, Google Analytics will be cool as a cucumber.

Also, if you’re trying to do a 301 that isn’t of the server-side variety (I’ve seen some people try to state 301 in HTML or through a JavaScript redirect — don’t ask), you will definitely have problems.

Google’s documentation on this refers to javascript and tracking redirects, and is MISLEADING. It is technically correct, but it is NOT talking about server-side 301/302 redirects. In the isolated case it refers to (which isn’t well explained), it is right.

Lastly, webkit-based browsers (Chrome and Safari among them) have a known problem with opening content in new tabs and windows. If a user right-clicks a link and selects Open in a New Window or Open in a New Tab, referrer data is LOST! MIND BLOWN! But if they simply hold CTRL or command (on a mac) while they click to launch in a new tab, referrer data is preserved. DOUBLE BLOWN!

KEEP IN MIND:

If you are using 301 redirects, make sure they preserve your tracking parameters (utm_source, etc., at the end of your destination URL). Commonly, parameters that may specify display, email, or paid search campaigns may be stripped. What happens here? The URL of the referring site becomes a referrer and your campaign information is lost.

For example:

1) Your email that someone reads on Gmail should be counted as source:”email” medium:”email” campaign:”super email campaign”

if you forget to keep your URL parameters, instead of this visit being attributed to the email campaign, it will count as a referral from google.com! WHAT?!? Yes!

2) You are running a paid search campaign and have the keyword “unicorn site.” You expect source:”google” medium:”cpc” campaign:”generic unicorn terms”

if you forget to keep your URL parameters, instead of the paid search campaign being recorded, this visit will be attributed to NON-PAID search!!! Holy shnikeys!

The last thing to keep in mind is that before 301 destination pages replace your original pages in search engines (or if you use 302 redirects, and the URLs are not replaced in that case), your actual link URL from the engines and your Entry Page will NOT be the same! In the example above, Google linked to http://www.mySite.com/unicorns.html, but the entry page was DOUBLE-unicorns.html. If you’re trying to compare traffic to entry pages with your ranking reports (tisk tisk for running ranking reports!), they will not mesh up if you marry them by URL!

Good luck!

When specialists solve a problem, they often create other, unforeseen problems because they tend to look through their own self-imposed keyholes.  Over time, these specialists broaden their horizons after realizing that the materials they use and methods they employ matter just as much as the predicted outcome.  Turns out copper won’t make poison of your drinking water.

So you’re probably asking me to get to the point – what does this have to do with SEO?

I’ve been fortunate to have worked with many professional SEOs over the years who understand that the point of SEO is not to gather a trophy collection of high rankings in Google, but to have those trophies produce traffic, interaction, and ultimately revenue (or some other comparable value).  To this end, they understand that ranking number 1 for “women’s fashion” and sending users to a page that looks like this is a failure:

Women’s Fashion – Fashion for Women who like Fashion

Women’s fashion is a fashionable, womanly way of being a woman with style (commonly referred to as Fashion, or Women’s fashion).  Check out this link to women’s fashion (it comes right back to this page! surprise! FASHION).  Maybe you’re looking for fashion BY women, or fashiony women.

Whatever you want in the world of women’s fashion, we have fashion for the woman in your life (unless you are a woman, and want fashion).  Let’s say hooray for fashion, fashion, fashion! Go women! Fashion!

Let’s do some math:

Fashion + women = women’s fashion.

by,

Women McFashionton

Of course, that’s a bit of an extreme example, but we’ve all seen it.

Unfortunately, I’ve also had the displeasure of working with some SEOs who have a total disregard for usability (although truthfully, I’ve seen this problem much more frequently the other way around: usability engineers who pretend that search isn’t a top-5 use case, when it’s usually #1).  They literally say, “Our job is to get rankings, and it’s someone else’s job to make the conversions happen.”  That attitude is the lead pipe with mercury strychnine lining of the internet.  Since SEO involves the modification of the very pages that will need to produce conversion post-click, this is an incredibly irresponsible, naive, and downright ridiculous way of going about search engine optimization, but I’d say that 3 out of 4 SEO engagements end up more or less this way.

This notion of unaccountability is the age-old plague of specialists who have not yet matured (or learned) enough to realize the value of synthesizing efforts into a single fabric, rather than loosely stitching together a hideous quilt of specialist’s favorite patterns.

How to pick a good SEO

So with all of that specialist ragging behind me, let’s break it down into how you can prevent this disaster on your site (or your company’s).

1.  Get a reporting sample. You’re looking for a report that talks about what’s happening with rankings, and WHY.  If your SEO doesn’t have an opinion on why movement is happening, what are the chances they’ll come up with a tactic to change it?  You’re also looking for post-click actions in the report, and again WHY.  Your SEO should be trying to drive good traffic to your site, and either diagnosing or doing their best to help your usability / analytics resources diagnose any issues with on-site performance.  Let’s not forget, you’re investing in SEO for a return, not a trophy case.

2.  Talk to the SEOs, both the ones who do the selling and the ones who will do the actual work.  Larger agencies may put less-experienced staff on the busy work of keyword buildouts and title + meta creation, but guess what?  Those are arguably the most important tasks.  Make sure that their process includes a review and some sort of feedback from analytics and usability folks (or a savvy businessperson) to validate that these phrases will work on these pages.  Refine keyword lists, even if you have to give up search frequency, to best fit the purpose of the target page and ensure a positive experience for visitors if engines choose that page as the best for that key phrase (and of course, there’s no guarantee of that).  Also, try to get a general feel for the value they place on the return of the program.  If it “feels” like all they care about is rankings, they aren’t going to be a true partner.

3.  Demand 6-month performance reviews. This is something that both you and your SEO should love.  One of the hardest parts of search engine optimization is deciding how to keep it going.  By having in-depth reviews of engine and site-side performance every 6 months, the strategy and tactics can be refined to continue boosting performance over time as the algorithm and competitive aggression changes.

Follow these three rules and I’m sure you’ll be shocked by how many candidates are weeded out.  Remember that the professions of SEO and analytics / usability are VERY different, so you shouldn’t expect to get one person that wears both hats: that would just be a waste of a specialist’s time.  What you’re looking for is a specialist who is aware of and cares about the collateral effects of their work.  This person/agency will apply their specialized knowledge responsibly so you don’t end up with mutant fish at the bottom of your sea.