“Zero” visits, or How I reduced the bounce rate in Yandex.Metrica. Self-installation of the Yandex.Metrica counter and setting up statistics yourself Do not count my visits

Metrica works using the well-known mechanism of Internet counters. Use of this service is possible after receiving special code and its installation on every page of the site. But before that, you need to configure all the characteristics.

Initially, you get access to the personal part of Yandex. To do this, you need to enter your account login and password and go to the Metrics page. If you don’t have them, then you need to register in Yandex - the task is extremely simple to stop at. After authorization in Yandex, you can begin creating and setting up a counter.

Creating and setting up a counter

Opening the “General” tab, set the name of the counter, specify the domain and time zone of the region. If your site has “mirrors,” write down their addresses in the appropriate column (“Additional domains”). You can set up alerts about problems with the page and schedule a visit in the range from 30 to 360 minutes.

After confirming the user agreement, feel free to click the “Save” button. On the "General" tab it will become available unique number, automatically assigned to your meter. With its help, you can “link” campaigns in Yandex.Direct and set certain types of goals.

The “Meter Code” tab allows you to manage some of its functions. The code itself is also located here. ATTENTION: the counter code is installed on the site only after complete setup.

You now have several convenient and useful tools at your disposal to make it easier to set up and manage website optimization.

Webvisor- a function that allows you to record the behavior of site visitors. It makes it very easy to analyze the difficulties users have on key pages. You can use it to track navigation transparency, form actions, and much more. Then this information will be very useful to you during page optimization. We will look at the web viewer settings in more detail below, in a separate tab.

Scroll map– multifunctional tool. In addition to the actual clicks, it allows you to track scrolling, links and paths through the site. With its help, you can improve the usability of your resource, based on statistics of frequently used elements, distribution of visitors' attention across pages, clicks on links, etc. In general, this is an extremely useful thing.

Informer- a tool that displays information about site traffic for the current day. It provides a number graphic settings, allowing you to succinctly integrate it into the page design. Although the code for this tool can be embedded separately from the counter, without last job informer is not possible.

Also, in the new Yandex.Metrica interface, additional options can be configured immediately. With their help you can:

• prohibit Metrica from allowing Yandex.Search to index a page with an installed counter;
• make the counter code asynchronous to avoid possible slowdown or blocking of site loading;
• improve statistics collection for AJAX and XML sites;
• ensure the transfer of additional proprietary characteristics to Metrica for collecting statistics (for example, order cost);
• change the code entry into a one-liner.

Once the setup is complete, save all changes and go to the “Webvisor” tab.

Setting up the Yandex Metrics web viewer

In the “Record page content” section, pages with unique content for each visitor are specified, which will be recorded along with actions. The picture above shows the cart section of an online store as an example. Please note that it is displayed with the products placed in it by the visitor during the visit. You may also notice that pages are not necessarily specified by the full URL, but often only by its significant part or regular expressions. Recording from the browser uses less resources, but sometimes appears distorted. In contrast, downloading from a website is more wasteful, but is displayed more accurately. In our opinion, it is more advisable to use the first option.

Function “Archive site pages” performs approximately the same task as the previous option, but is much less accurate, so we will not consider it in detail.

The last setting of the web viewer is the way pages are loaded into the player. It may belong to one of the following types.

"On your behalf". In this case, the page loaded into the player will be the same as what you see when visiting the site. Your authorization (if you have one) will be valid in the player. If the site has a shopping cart with the goods you have placed, you will see them, and not the contents of the visitor’s shopping cart.

"On behalf of an anonymous user". This mode displays the page in the player as it would be seen by a user visiting the site for the first time. If your resource provides authorization, the page will appear in an “unauthorized” form in the player. We recommend using this method if the player reproduces the actions of visitors with undesirable effects, for example, when new products are placed in your personal basket each time.

We consider the second method of loading the page to be more appropriate.

You can see all the information on the webvisor and the click map at home page counter by opening the “Behavior” tab.

Setting goals

Having finished debugging the web viewer, save the changes and proceed to setting up goals. Since this operation is dedicated, there is no point in dwelling on this point in detail.

Once you've finished setting up your goals, you can use Metrica to adjust the filters that filter out unnecessary information from operations and reports that bring control data to a different form. But about this in order.

Setting up filters in Yandex Metrica

The filter functionality allows you to exclude specific traffic from reports based on specified conditions, or cut off everything else, leaving only that traffic. As filtering criteria, you can select title, referrer, IP address (by specific value or interval) and Page URL. Other criteria are specified with the conditions "starts with", "contains" or "equals". We talked about setting goals in more detail in the article on setting goals. You can also combine multiple (maximum 30 per counter) filters. In this case, they will work in the order in which they are located. It is possible to rearrange filters in sequence, disable them without deleting them, or simply delete them. By checking the appropriate box, you can clear the reports from the data of your own visits.

For example, using filters you can cut off office traffic. Simply define the intervals for the IP addresses of your enterprise, and the system will automatically clear the reports from the information remaining after website layout designers, managers and other employees have visited the site.

You can also clear reports from visits to your resource by robots. The filtering conditions here are:

• “strict rules” - fixed templates for User-Agent and IP addresses;
• “strict rules and behavior” applied to abnormal surges in incoming traffic.

Thanks to operations, you can change the URLs of pages displayed in reports. They allow you to delete all parameters or one of them, cut the anchor, change the domain or https to http, change everything to lowercase. When excluding a parameter or replacing a domain, you must specify that parameter and new domain. In other cases, you only need to indicate what the operation was applied to (page address or referrer). Using operations, you can, for example, cut off the session identifier written in the link.

Installing a Yandex Metrics counter on a website

Only after completing all the necessary settings can you install the counter code on the site. We remind you once again that the code must be inserted on EVERY page, this is equally true for a one-page landing page and an online store. The code is written in the tag …. When changing the counter settings, these changes must be applied to its code on all pages of the site. Otherwise, you will receive data that corresponds to the old parameters. You can edit an existing counter by clicking on the gear. It is located in the list of all counters. You also have the opportunity to give access to viewing and editing the counter to other Yandex accounts (this may be needed when analyzing the analytics of your site), to do this, click on the “Accesses” button and set the necessary parameters.

Carefully consider the need for each tool and after each change of settings, carefully monitor the updates to the counter code!

You can also contact our agency and we will help you correct settings Yandex.Metrics!

Hi guys! Evgeniy Tridchikov is in touch and in this article, as per tradition, I will briefly and straightforwardly tell you how to set up Yandex Metrica.

Here are the basic settings, which are almost always enough to understand what is happening on the site.
I would call it minimum requirements on setting up Metrics.

I would like to emphasize that without installing Metrics this is very bad, because you will not have comprehensive analytics on your work advertising campaigns. Now let's go.

How to set up Yandex Metrica

Metrics counter settings: basic

• The “Counter Name” field is set for yourself; it is logical to indicate the name of the site here.
• The “Site Domain” field must contain the website address, i.e. second level domain - in our example site.ru
• The “Add domain” button allows you to add sites to collect information from them, i.e. cross-domain binding. In this case, one counter must be installed at the sites.
• The Time Zone field synchronizes reports according to your time zone.
• "Time out visit to minutes”—sets the maximum duration of the visit.

Click the “Create counter” button and go to the settings.

Setting up Metrics: “counter code” tab

The “Counter Code” tab contains several checkpoints. Let's look at them in more detail.

• “Webvisor, scroll map, form analytics” - check the box to enable the corresponding functions in Metrica.
• “Hash tracking in the browser address bar” is relevant for AJAX sites, so we’ll skip it.
• “For XML sites” - accordingly, we skip it.
• “In one line” is purely for aesthetes.
• “Prohibition of sending site pages for indexing” - skip, no comments.
• “Informer” is the name of a block counter that can be placed anywhere on the page. We don’t use it (why open statistics?).

Thus, we copy the contents of the counter and click the save button.

Setting up Metrics: “Webvisor” tab

Webvisor is the most useful thing in Metrica. A tool that records user visits and allows you to view them in the Metrica player. A very cool thing for analytics.

I'm using the "from browser" and "from anonymous user" entries. See the settings in the screenshot. More detailed information You can find out about recording options by clicking on the question mark icons.

Setting up Metrics: “goals” tab

Setting goals is a topic for a separate article, so I will pay special attention to this and will prepare a detailed post on this topic in a couple of days. I’ll just mention that at least one goal should be configured, because the essence of analytics is studying user experience on the way to our goal. Let's skip it for now.

Setting up Metrics: “filters” tab

On the "Filters" tab, you can set a limit on incoming traffic, and also convert it using the "Operations" tool.

For example, I know that visits to my site (when I log into the site admin area or when any other site administrator does this) occur via links that contain the word admin. That is, if the URL (link) contains this word (admin), we can conclude that there is an administrator on the site. Why record his visits? After all, we only need new and unique users in our reports; it makes no sense to overload them with our own visits.

Therefore, I boldly set up a filter for visits whose URL contains “admin”, check the “Do not take into account my visits” checkbox, as well as the checkbox next to “filter robots only according to strict rules”. Click the “Save” button.

Setting up Metrics: “notifications” tab

Here you can set rules for receiving notifications about Metrica work. I think there will be no questions, everything is very clear.

Same with the “Access” tab.

Summary

That's it basic setup Yandex Metrics is over. This step-by-step instruction Suitable for all beginners. All that remains is to insert the counter code before the closing tag and start getting statistics.
If I forgot to tell you something about how to install Yandex Metrica, please do not hesitate to ask questions in the comments. Have a good day!

When a SEO grows out of short pants, he begins to open Metrics and Analytics not only to... hmm, admire the beautifully growing graphs. Complex data segmentation and detailed analysis of entry points and conversions come to the fore. In short - advanced features. If you are using a statistical system specifically for serious analytics, then you hardly need to prove how important the accuracy of the source data is.

I’ll tell you about several simple techniques to increase the correctness of statistics.

1. Set the counter as high as possible in the code

The position of the counter is really very important. If you put it at the end of the code, the system will not count visitors who leave the site without waiting for it to fully load. This will deprive you of valuable data about failures and prevent you from dealing with them.

In addition, distortions can be very large. I know of a case where Analytics and Metrics installed in different places returned a number of visitors that differed by more than twice (by the way, if you experience a similar problem, check the speed of the site).

2. Filter users who are not part of the target audience

The director opens the meeting.

— How many people visited our site yesterday?

- So. Our company has 43 employees. What bastard didn't come in?

Jokes aside, on poorly visited sites the project team can seriously influence the statistics.

To avoid this, go to the counter settings - Filters and:

1. Check the “Do not count my visits” checkbox.
2. Add a filter based on the IP of employees working on the site.

If you have a lot of remote workers working on your site, IP filtering can be inconvenient. There is no ideal solution for this case; as an option, you can require employees to access the site only through a link with a label like “utm_source=corporate”. Or make sure everyone visits a link with a parameter once, set a cookie, and then track visits of visitors with this cookie through a “JavaScript event” type goal.

We do not close the “Filters” page; it is also needed for the following points.

3. Filtering robots

Set the option “filter robots by strict rules and behavior” (the most stringent option). After the settings take effect, the total amount of traffic displayed on the site may be seriously reduced. Take this into account if the site is not yours, but a client’s.

For customers who do not have extensive experience in Internet marketing, it is often extremely difficult to prove that it is not the number of visitors as such that is important, but the clients that the site brings. It would seem that representatives of real businesses, coming to the Internet, should care primarily about orders/purchases. This doesn’t always happen: the magic of growing charts is addictive.

4. We accept data only from our domains

This week, many of our users noticed the appearance in Metrica reports (Popular, Webvisor) of page views from domains that have nothing to do with the counter.

From a technical point of view, there is nothing impossible in such a situation: it was spam. Yes, on a par with postal and search spam, such “statistics spam” also exists. We have localized the source of this spam and blocked it.

Why does Metrica accept hits related to other domains? This is done for the convenience of users: very often meter owners do not indicate the website address in the settings. Or, having installed the tracking code on another site, they forget to register it as a mirror. If Metrica did not take into account views from such unspecified sites by default, this would create unnecessary inconvenience.

Each user can independently enable filtering, which prevents Metrica from taking into account views from any other sites. To do this, you need to specify the site address and all the necessary mirrors in the counter settings, and then in the “Filters” section of the counter settings add the filtering rule “Keep only traffic - page URL - site and mirrors”.

Unfortunately, in this way it will not be possible to block all refspam (invalid referrals from “left” sites). I consider banning sites that “mess up” the conversion statistics in htacess to be a waste of resources (the list of domains is constantly changing); if necessary, it is easier to create and save segments that cut off refspam in Metrica itself.

5. We struggle with “internal transitions”

I think everyone saw the traffic source in the reports " internal transitions" In fact, Metrica records visitors who have spent a long time on the site like this: one visit is divided into several, and the true source is shown only for the first visit.

If internal transitions bother you, then most of them can be easily removed by adding them to 1 visit. Quote from the help:

The visit is completed if some time has passed between the visitor's actions on the site. Default is 30 minutes. You can specify a different time using the visit timeout option.
For example, the timeout is 30 minutes. The visitor visited the site and viewed several pages - the visit was counted. Then I left the browser tab open and walked away. After 35 minutes, he returned (the timeout period had expired) and went to another page on the site. This viewing is considered a new visit.

Thus, to get rid of internal transitions, you need to go to the counter settings (the “Basic” tab) and specify a timeout, for example, 360 minutes.

Attention: you should not change the timeout just “just in case”. First, make sure that changing the rules for calculating the number of visits will not distort the results of regularly monitored metrics or experiments. The total number of displayed visits will decrease, the viewing depth will increase slightly, take this into account.

For a number of purposes, it will be quite enough to simply remove internal transitions using the appropriate segment.

For example (clickable):

Of course, you can filter in other ways. In my opinion, this is why Metrica is good - it provides a lot of alternative ways to quickly build any reports, and very valuable data can be found in the nuances in which they differ. He who has a head, let him find!

Surely you already know that the Metrics counter must be installed on the website to track business indicators: traffic sources, time on the site, viewing depth, conversion, etc. This opens up the possibility of in-depth analysis of the resource’s performance and timely adjustments. The big plus is that the completely free counter provides extensive statistics.

However, for correct operation it is important not only to install it, but also to configure it correctly. We talk about how to do this in the article below.

Setting up counters and goals in Yandex.Metrica

First of all, you need to create an account in Yandex (or log in to an existing one) and go to the page of the service itself.

For new users, the “Counters” menu is automatically selected on this page, in which you should click on the “Add counter” button:

Important! A counter is a representation of a site inside Metrica, i.e. the place where all data about the site will be stored. If you have several sites, then for each site you need to create a separate counter so that statistics are collected and displayed correctly. IN otherwise the data will be mixed.

After clicking on the “Add counter” button we see the following form:

Fill out the form fields:

1. Counter name— it’s most convenient to indicate the name of the site, so as not to get confused later when creating other counters.
2. Website address— indicate the site URL.
3. Additional addresses— if you want to collect general data on several sites, then add it here.
4. Timezone— select the time zone of the region in which your company operates.
5. Currency— indicate the currency in which we want to see product data.
6. Visit timeout in minutes— the time of inactivity of the visitor on the site, after which the visit will be considered completed (for example, a person opened your site, and then went into the kitchen and forgot that he was working at the computer, the time of the visit passes, but in fact there is no visit). It's better to leave the default value.

In the end it will look like this:

The tab is automatically selected and on it we see a list of parameters:

Select the item “Webvisor, scroll map, form analytics”, which will give us access to maps and webvisor. Other options are very specific and you may never need, so you can read about them in Yandex help.

Scroll down the page and Be sure to click on the “Save” button.

Below we see the code of our counter, which must be placed on all pages of the site in HTML code (preferably at the beginning of the tag ):

Important! Every time you make changes to the counter settings on this tab, you must click the “Save” button and then replace the counter code on the site.

Check the “Do not take into account my visits” checkbox to collect cleaner data on your visitors, without taking into account your activity on the site, and click on the “Save” button.

If you do not select this filter, then the reports will most likely show high refusals for direct visits or, conversely, the indicators “time on site” or “number of pages viewed” will be too high. Don't think that your visits can complement the statistics. Owners interact with a site a little differently than clients.

For the “Robot Filtering” item, it is better to leave the parameter as default.

To receive notifications about site availability, we recommend that you provide your email or phone number where reports will be sent.

Ready! The basic settings of the counter have been completed and its code can be installed on the website.

Important! To collect data correctly, the code must be on every page of the site. The code begins collecting data immediately after it is added to the site.

Goals tab

The goal is configured for a specific user action on the site, for example, visiting a page, clicking a button, downloading a file, etc. The main thing is to track those actions that benefit your business.

Please note that there is no standard set of goals. Everything is individual and depends on the tasks you set for the site. Now let’s look at the main types of goals from which you can choose the appropriate option.

Goals can be added, edited, or deleted at any time, but we recommend setting them up for all conversion elements and/or pages at once. This will avoid data shortages in the future.

There are 4 types of goals available in Metrica, which you can find in the “Goals” tab (click on the “Add goal” button):

1. Page visits- default target. Allows you to track the number of visitors for one or a set of pages (up to 10). You can also analyze transitions to external sites or file downloads.

   For example, we want to know how many users visit the contact page: . For this:

   1. We indicate the name of the goal that we understand: “Visit the contact page.” Write detailed names so that later it will be easier to remember why the purpose was created.
   2. Then in the “Condition” field, select “url: contains” and indicate on the right full address pages. If we have a section with a contact page divided into subsections and we do not want data to be collected by subsections, it is better to select the “url: matches” parameter.
   3. Save the goal by clicking on the “Add goal” button.

   

   At first glance, the goal is simple, but it works great for events such as:

   • Visiting the order confirmation page (for an online store) or registration.
   • Downloading a file (for example, a price list or presentation).
   • Visit the page with information for partners or a list of dealers.
   • Adding a comment or review.
   • Visiting the page with confirmation of subscription to the newsletter, etc.

   You can set up such a goal without the help of a programmer. But due to the link to the page address, this goal option is not suitable for non-unique pages.

2. Number of views- this goal allows you to select those users who have viewed the specified number of pages. Necessary for assessing the depth of site viewing.

   For example, let's specify 5 pages to track the number of users who viewed 5 or more pages of the site. Don’t forget to indicate the name of the goal and click on the “Add goal” button.

   

3. JavaScript event- a goal that allows you to track the execution of events: clicking a button, filling out a form, watching a video, etc. To set a goal, a unique parameter is specified in the “Goal ID” field, which is called using the “reachGoal” function in the code of an element on the site.

   For example, we would like to track the number of clicks on the “Get Expert Advice” button for the audit sales page, so we would specify the advice parameter as follows:

   

   Then, in order for the goal data to be counted, on the site in the element code you need to add a function with our parameter:

   yaCounter12345678.reachGoal("sovet"), where 12345678 is your counter number, which is listed at the top of the Metrics page:

   

   Important! For each element, the identifier must be unique and match the corresponding parameter in the site code. Identifiers should not contain the same words as in the page address, as well as special characters: /, &, #, ?, =.

   The downside is that if you don’t know how to make changes to the code of your site, you will have to involve an appropriate specialist (which may take time). But this goal not tied to the page address, allows you to track multiple actions on one page.

4. Composite Goal- suitable for tracking sequences of actions. Most often used to analyze the process of ordering a product or filling out an application for a service.

   For example, to order a product, let’s create an approximate order of steps:

   1. Go to the cart page - url: starts with https://site.ru/cart
   2. Filling out the order form - zakaz ID
   3. Go to the order confirmation page - url: matches https://site.ru/success

   The name and number of steps may vary depending on the site. For this purpose, we recommend specifying a name for each step; for identifiers, you need to add the corresponding functions to the site code.

   In Metrica, the form is filled out as follows:

   

   This goal is like a kind of constructor, where each step is a goal of the form “Page Visit” or “JavaScript Event”. In the reports you can also see data separately for each step. The maximum number of steps is 5, so if your website process is performed in more stages, then it is worth breaking it down into several component goals.

   Important! The steps must be connected and performed in a row: if it is possible to complete the third step without skipping the second, then such a sequence will not count. In this case, you will have to create a separate goal for each scenario.

In general, when setting goals, it is worth knowing about the following features:

• You can create a maximum of 200 targets for one counter.
• When the goal changes, the accumulated data is not recalculated.
• When you delete a target, no data is saved.

Goals report

Overall conversion data for all configured goals is available in the Conversions report.

And the results will look like this:

Each goal can be “expanded” for more detailed analysis of information.

The composite goal will look like this:

If you click on the funnel sign next to the name,

You can get a step-by-step report in the form of a funnel:

Such reports will help you understand at what step users have difficulties and leave. Having figured out which step is the most problematic, it’s worth moving on to analyzing the “Webvisor” records.

Conclusion

Now you know how to create a counter and set up goals in Metrica. Thanks to the counter, you will be able to receive more accurate information about the actions of your users on the site and understand exactly where to make changes on the site.

To consolidate the information, we also recommend reading our book “Business Analytics. Not a step without Yandex.Metrica" ​​and watch the webinar.

If you have any difficulties or would like to delegate the meter setup to specialists, you can

If you have your own website and use Yandex.Metrica to collect its statistical data, a natural question arises: “How can I remove my visits and transitions from the statistics so that they are not taken into account by the counter?” In principle, this is a reasonable task that will allow you to clear the statistics of your web project from your own personal transitions and visits.

Yandex.Metrica statistics, in which your personal actions (as the site owner and the most frequent visitor) are removed, will be more objective and unbiased. And this is especially important when setting Goals for certain actions, events, transitions. Indeed, because of your visits and clicks, all these calculations may lose objectivity and will not show the real state of affairs on the site.

In general, it is better for every webmaster working with the Yandex Metrica system to sort and remove their visits, especially since this is done quite simply! Just a few clicks in the Metrics settings and your statistics will become much cleaner and clearer. Well, let's start!

How to remove your visits from Yandex.Metrica statistics: step-by-step instructions

Step #1

Step #2

Note: in the screenshots we will immediately show the new Metrics, which from June 22 will be official version of this service.

Step #3

In the site counter editing section, you need to find the “Filters” menu item and go to it.

Step #4

The last step is just to set the “prohibiting” checkbox against the “Do not take into account my visits” option. We put a tick and be sure to confirm our actions with the “SAVE” button in order to remember the entered settings.

Do not count my visits (visits):

In this case, there is no need to change the Metrica counter code () or the informer code. The settings automatically take effect after they are installed and saved by the webmaster.

By the way, after your visits have been removed from Yandex.Metrica statistics, you can check this and walk through the pages and sections of your web resource. Ideally, your actions will be ignored by the statistics collection counter. True, this will be so as long as you are authorized in the Yandex system, as long as you access the site from your main (not someone else’s) computer.

If you decide to look at the pages of your project using mobile phone or a tablet where authorization in Yandex has not been completed, your visits will already be recorded as unique. Take this into account when collecting statistical data and filter out all junk information.

Finally, as per tradition, there is an interesting video about working with the Yandex.Metrica system.