[UA] About Content Grouping [Legacy]

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Content Grouping lets you group content into a logical structure that reflects how you think about your site or app, and then view and compare aggregated metrics by group name in addition to being able to drill down to the individual URL, page title, or screen name. For example, you can see the aggregated number of pageviews for all pages in a group like Men/Shirts, and then drill in to see each URL or page title.

You start by creating a Content Group, a collection of content. For example, on an ecommerce site that sells clothing, you might create groups for Men, Women, and Children. Then, within each group, you might create content like Shirts, Pants, Outerwear. This would let you compare aggregated statistics for each type of clothing within a group (e.g., Men’s Shirts vs Men’s Pants vs. Men’s Outerwear). It would also let you drill in to each group to see how individual Shirts pages compare to one another, for example, Men/Shirts/T-shirts/index.html vs Men/Shirts/DressShirts/index.html.

If you want to compare aggregated sales by Department, then you might create a group called Department, and within that group create content for Men, Women, Children.

You can create up to five Content Groupings. Within each of those, there is no limit to the number of Content Groups you can define.

You have three options for how you assign content:

  • Group by Tracking Code (modify the tracking code on each web page):

    Add a single line of code that identifies the content index number and the Content Group to which that content belongs.
  • Group Using Extraction (extract content based on URL or page title)

    Use a regular expression to identify a full or partial URL, page title, or screen name.
  • Group Using Rule Definitions:

    Use the rules editor to create simple rules to identify content.

You can use one, two, or all three of these methods. If you use more than one method, Analytics adds content to a group based on the first match. Analytics first evaluates the tracking code, then whether you have defined any regular expressions, and then whether you have configured any rules. Within rules, Analytics evaluates the rules in order.

You can include the same content in multiple groups.

Content Grouping is not retroactive. The Content Groups that you create are valid only from the creation date forward.

You create Content Groupings at the view level, under Admin > <view> > Content Grouping.

About 24 hours after you create a Content Group, you can see that data in your reports.

Content-Grouping statistics in your reports

Content-Grouping statistics are available in the Content reports that offer Content Grouping as a primary dimension.

You can also use Content Group as a dimension in custom reports.

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