Figure 26: Advanced filter to add the Hostname to the Request URI
Tracking Across Multiple Sub Domains Like tracking across multiple domains, the primary issue with tracking across multiple sub domains has to do with the cookie domain. By default, the GATC includes the website sub domain in the cookie domain. This means that a cookie set by the GATC while the visitor is visiting one sub domain cannot be utilized by the GATC on different sub domain. So, a visitor who visits multiple sub domains on a website will receive a different set of tracking cookies for each sub domain. I’ve illustrated this issue in Table 5. Table 5: How sub domains affect cookie domains.
Domain
Cookie Domain
Can be accessed by
support.foo.com .support.foo.com
support.foo.com only
secure.foo.com
.secure.foo.com only
.secure.foo.com
To resolve this issue the cookie domain must be consistent from one sub domain to another. The sub domain must be removed from the cookie domain. Once the sub domain is removed the cookie can be accessed by the GATC that appears on any sub domain, as illustrated in table 6.
Google Analytics
39