Sending pageview data via measurement protocol in Google Analytics

This article is related to measurement protocol in Google Analytics.

If you are brand new to measurement protocol, then read this article first: Understanding Google Analytics measurement protocol.

In this article, I will show you, how to send pageview data via the measurement protocol.

In order to send pageview data via measurement protocol, set the hit type parameter to ‘pageview’. For example:

t=pageview

and then use this parameter along with other required parameters for payload data:

  1. Measurement Protocol Version (v)
  2. Tracking ID (tid)
  3. Client ID (cid)

For example, the following payload data send the ‘pageview’ hit to Google Analytics:

v=1&t=pageview&tid=UA-1500844-34&cid=d0abe39e-ba31-4d6a-a70e-65e8345a4bce

Once you have created the payload data, ask your developer to write an application (program) which make the following similar HTTP POST request to the GA server:

User-Agent: user_agent_string

POST https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?payload_data

For example:

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/30.0.1599.69 Safari/537.36

POST https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&t=pageview&tid=UA-1500844-34&cid=d0abe39e-ba31-4d6a-a70e-65e8345a4bce

This HTTP POST request will send the payload data (which contains the pageview hit) to Google Analytics.

You can also send content data with a pageview hit by using the following additional parameters:

  1. Document referrer
  2. Document location
  3. Document hostname
  4. Document path
  5. Document title

#1 Document Referrer

Document referrer is the referral source that sent traffic to your website.

Document referrer is denoted by ‘dr‘ parameter. The value of this parameter should be an encoded URL. For example,

dr=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.com%2F

as in:

v=1&t=pageview&tid=UA-1500844-34&cid=d0abe39e-ba31-4d6a-a70e-65e8345a4bce&
dr=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.com%2F

Note (1): Here http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.com%2F is the encoded version of the URL: http://www.abc.com/

Note (2): All values of the ‘dr’ parameter must be URL encoded before they are sent to the Google Analytics server.

#2 Document location

Document location is the full URL of the page which contains the contents.

Document location is denoted by ‘dl‘ parameter. The value of this parameter should be an encoded URL. For example:

dl= http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fcourses%2Fevent

As in:

v=1&t=pageview&tid=UA-1500844-34&cid=d0abe39e-ba31-4d6a-a70e-65e8345a4bce&
dr=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.com%2F&
dl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fcourses%2Fevent

 Note: Here http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fcourses%2Fevent is the encoded version of the URL: http://www.example.com/courses/event is

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#3 Document hostname

Document hostname is the name of the host where the contents are hosted.

Document hostname is denoted by ‘dh‘ parameter. The value of this parameter should be a hostname. For example:

dh=example.com

as in

v=1&t=pageview&tid=UA-1500844-34&cid=d0abe39e-ba31-4d6a-a70e-65e8345a4bce&
dr=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.com%2F&
dl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fcourses%2Fevent&
dh=example.com

#4 Document path

Document path is denoted by ‘dp‘ parameter. The value of this parameter should be an encoded URI. For example:

dp=%2Fcourses%2Fevent

As in:

v=1&t=pageview&tid=UA-1500844-34&cid=d0abe39e-ba31-4d6a-a70e-65e8345a4bce&dr=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.com%2F&
dl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fcourses%2Fevent&
dh=example.com&dp=%2Fcourses%2Fevent

Note: Here %2Fcourses%2Fevent is the encoded version of the document path: /courses/event

#5 Document title

Document title is denoted by ‘dt‘ parameter. The value of this parameter should be an URL encoded text string. For example:

dt=event%20education%20courses

As in:

v=1&t=pageview&tid=UA-1500844-34&cid=d0abe39e-ba31-4d6a-a70e-65e8345a4bce&
dr=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.com%2F&dl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fcourses%2Fevent&
dh=example.com&dp=%2Fcourses%2Fevent&dt=event%20education%20courses

Note: Here dt=event%20education%20courses is the encoded version of the document title: event education courses.

Other articles on measurement protocol

  1. Sending campaign data via measurement protocol in Google Analytics
  2. Sending event data via measurement protocol in Google Analytics
  3. Sending ecommerce data via measurement protocol in Google Analytics
  4. Sending social interactions via measurement protocol in Google Analytics
  5. Creating and validating measurement protocol requests through postman
  6. Understanding measurement protocol validation server

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Himanshu Sharma

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