Google Analytics API - Get page view information for specific URLs

Question

I am looking to implement a page view tracking system on one of my websites.

The website is a directory where suppliers can advertise their services. Suppliers have a unique profile page on the site, e.g mysite.com/directory/abc-profile.html

The idea is that suppliers can log in to their account area on the site and view stats on how many people are visiting their profile. Ideally I want to display this as :

Total views | Total today | This week | This month | This year

It does not matter if the data is not completely up to date.

I already have Google Analytics tracking code installed on the site. Is it possible to use the Google Analytics API to retrieve this data? If so, what kind of query do I need to make? I had a look on the documentation but could not figure whether the functions allow this or not.

I am using PHP and MySQL on the server.

Answer 1

Yes - you will need to use the Google Analytics API for this. I would suggest checking out the Query Explorer to get a feel for the queries you will need to create.

You will require numerous queries to get all the data you need (adjusting the starting date): - Total Views - This Year - This Month - This Week (i.e. last 7 days - from which you could also get Total Today).

Here is an example query:

https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/ga?ids=ga:1234456789&dimensions=ga:pagePath&metrics=ga:pageviews&filters=ga:pagePath==/about-us.html&start-date=2013-10-15&end-date=2013-10-29&max-results=50

Alternatively, you might want to consider www.embeddedanalytics.com (disclosure - I work with them). We have a service/platform that allows website owners to embed GA based charts/statistics without having to learn the GA API. We have a CMS version which will do exactly what you need (where you script the call to pass the page path). We have done something like this with a number of podcast sharing sites.

Answer 2

Google suggests using Reporting API V4 now. The accepted answer uses V3.

Here is a V4 request example:

POST https://analyticsreporting.googleapis.com/v4/reports:batchGet?key={YOUR_API_KEY}
{
 "reportRequests": [
  {
   "viewId": "YOUR_VIEW_ID",
   "dimensions": [
    {
     "name": "ga:pagePath"
    }
   ],
   "metrics": [
    {
     "expression": "ga:pageviews"
    }
   ],
   "dimensionFilterClauses": [
    {
     "filters": [
      {
       "operator": "EXACT",
       "dimensionName": "ga:pagePath",
       "expressions": [
        "/your-path"
       ]
      }
     ]
    }
   ],
   "dateRanges": [
    {
     "startDate": "2009-12-31",
     "endDate": "2016-09-28"
    }
   ]
  }
 ]
}

where
YOUR_API_KEY - for auth related things follow this page
YOUR_VIEW_ID - you can use the Account Explorer to find a View ID. (or Admin -> View -> View Settings -> View ID).

For more documentation details and a "Try it!" console follow this page.

Answer 3

You should be able to add a filter on landing page. I am assuming that each user's site has there own start page. This return only the data for that user. If you want the code on how to do this i sugest you google: google analics core reporting api PHP tutorial

Another idea would be to let the user add there Google Analytics account to there profile. Then you can out put the google analytics code onto there page. Then they can track there own google analytics data and you wont need to deal with any of it.