Google Analytics from a file:// url

Question

We have an ajaxy sort of html based app framework thing and want google analytics to work with it. And I believe we have set things up properly to manually call _trac

Answer 1

OK, I think I have this one solved. It's been dogging me for a few days.

According to Google Analytics Help Center,

Visitors must have JavaScript, images, and cookies enabled in their browsers in order for Analytics to report their visit.

Here's my theory: In my tests on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, documents run from file:// are not able to set cookies. This is because cookies are proprietary to HTTP, and when you run something from file://, you're not using the HTTP protocol.

Since you're not able to set cookies, ga.js refuses to send the _utm.gif request to Google's servers. No cookies get set; no request is sent to google, so nothing is logged in GA.

Solution: Use a development environment where you can set your domain as http://localhost (something like MAMP, if you're on a Mac and need a LAMP stack)

(Weird footnote: I observed some weird behavior where the GA cookies would set as third-party cookies of the domain of an unrelated imported script from a third party non-CDN domain. This could be because since the server sends HTTP cookies with the file, ga.js is attaching itself to that domain. However, this won't serve as a backdoor, since it still won't send the _utm.gif hit to Google's servers ).

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EDIT:

You could try one of the various work arounds people have created for cookie-less GA tracking.

You might get some success out of this tool: http://code.google.com/p/google-analytics-js/downloads/list, explained here: http://remysharp.com/2009/02/27/analytics-for-bookmarklets-injected-scripts/

Instead of all of that GA code, you would include the script, and then call it using the following code:

gaTrack('UA-XXXACCOUNTID-XX', 'myfake.domain.com', '/some/path/here');

Its designed for bookmarklet/injected script tracking, but if I put in a file:// type setup, its able to successfully send the __utm.gif hit, meaning it SHOULD track successfully in GA.

The drawback is that cookieless means that it won't be able to track visits accurately, just page-view level data.