domain redirects and analytics

[Noise-Barrier]

so a client purchased a bunch (about 50) domains and is redirecting all of them to his main site.

is there anyway to track these URLs? if i add analytics code to the new domain, will it show up in Analytics even with the redirect? it seems like it would be too fast to gather the data. would these domains show up as a referral in analytics for the main site if users type in the new domain and get redirected to the main site?

any other ideas that i should be looking at for tracking these domains?

[wige]

It depends on how you are doing the redirection. In most cases, you have a rewrite rule on your server that presents the user with a 301 redirect to the destination page. In that case, you would most likely only be able to obtain information about the results of the redirection through your server logs. If you configure a seperate log that stores the referrer, domain, and IP, you should have the information you need.

[Noise-Barrier]

just to clarify...the URLs were purchased for type in traffic but they may also do some offline ads with the new URLs and were hoping to be able to track those referrals. so a newspaper ad may show the URL sitedomaincity.com but then when typed into the address bar it would redirect (via the server) to sitedomain.com.

how would these visitors show up in analytics? as direct traffic? or as referral traffic from sitedomaincity.com?

[incrediblehelp]

Well if you set up the domains under their own shared hosting and then 301 redirect to the main domain, you could then add Google Analytics code to each.

[terryson01]

If i add analytics code to the new domain, will it show up in Analytics even with the redirect? it seems like it would be too fast to gather the data. would these domains show up as a referral in analytics for the main site if users type in the new domain and get redirected to the main site?

[Jean-Luc]

I doubt that G. Analytics can help, because there will be no page of the redirecting virtual domain where you can copy the G.A. tags.

I would make sure that the virtual domain of each hit is saved in the web server log file and I would use AWStats to track it. You would be able to get accurate figures for each virtual domain even in case of 301 redirects.

Jean-Luc

[wige]

Honestly, I am not even sure if the Analytics code would execute on a 301 redirect page. The browser may immediately do the redirection as soon as it encounters the 301 header. I haven't tested this, but it is a possibility.