Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by true_religion 4691 days ago
_utm.gif is the generic way that Google Analatics communicates back with its servers---there's no rest API.

So if you're doing things like event tracking, without counting the event as a page view, then you'll still see another request to _utm.gif

They appear to have one normal _trackPageView call in the header, then one or more other calls coming from within minimized JavaScript files.

Here's one:

     _gaq.push(["_trackEvent", e, t, n.toString(), parseInt(r, 10), !0])
This is the signature for _trackEvent

    _trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value, opt_noninteraction)
!0 evaluates to true in javascript so this event is marked as non-interactive, and thus doesn't count as an extra page view and won't be used in bounce-rate calculations.

Presuming the other calls are identical, then their reported bounce rate should be correct.
1 comments
integraton 4691 days ago
Looking at the two additional requests, they do currently have the utmni parameter, marking them as non-interactive.

However, the top comment references Google Analytics events on scroll that don't appear to be there now. One of FastCo.Labs folks also made the following comment:

  This made me curious as well. It turns out there was a
  technical change made at around the same time that is
  going to account for some of it. We're running an
  experiment now and will update with results.
I don't see the update from him. Given all of this, I would guess that they were triggering events incorrectly and have since fixed it (the article is 3 months old).
link
irollboozers 4691 days ago
That's extremely embarrassing.
link