_trackEvent() from Google Analytics not working?

Question

I have Google Analytics setup on my site, and it is definitely recording page views. But I have added some code to call pageTracker._trackEvent(category, action, label, value), and it is not recording those hits or showing them in the reports.

BTW, yes, I have waited for over 24hrs to see if the hits are in the reports.

I have used the standard Google script include as well as the technique mentioned here. Neither one seems to help the _trackEvent() problem.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to track down what's going wrong? I'd be happy to post code examples if you let me know what parts are important.

Thanks.

Can you show some real world code snippet how you applied it? According to your description, everything is alright. — viam0Zah
– viam0Zah, Commented Jul 21, 2009 at 16:04

slolife · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-23 22:23:12Z

40

The problem was the values that I was putting in the final argument, the "value" parameter.

pageTracker._trackEvent(category, action, label, value)

I was passing non-integer strings to the "value" parameter:

pageTracker._trackEvent("UserAction", "ShowHelp", "Page", "http://mysite/UrlGoesHere");

but the docs say it needs to be an integer value.

pageTracker._trackEvent("UserAction", "ShowHelp", "http://mysite/UrlGoesHere",  1);

I posed the question on Google Help Forums here.

And here is a link to the Event Tracking docs

Thanks for the help Török

edited Jan 23, 2014 at 22:23

answered Jul 21, 2009 at 20:52

slolife

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5 Comments

HungryCoder Over a year ago

you saved my day. i was in stuck with it by sending a float as the value and it was not working :(. thanks a lot.

Simon_Weaver Over a year ago

Note: the google analytics debugger chrome plugin (developed by Google) is clever enough to report this problem : chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-analytics-debugger/…

Simon_Weaver Over a year ago

Also general debugging guidelines can be useful developers.google.com/analytics/resources/articles/…

ATSiem Over a year ago

This only works if you have the async Google Analytics tracking code installed on the same page... developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/…

Touko Over a year ago

Good to note that integer seems to be wanted, even though [some documentation ](developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/…) says number.

KevBurnsJr · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-20 00:49:00Z

7

Similarly, label can not be an integer or the _trackEvent function fails silently.

pageTracker._trackEvent('VLP', 'click-out', 12345);

Fixed as

pageTracker._trackEvent('VLP', 'click-out', '12345');

answered Oct 20, 2010 at 0:49

KevBurnsJr

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Tyler · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-02 19:45:46Z

4

Updated Answer

This question is still getting a lot of pageviews. I feel like the current visitors are facing a new problem that the other answers don't address.

New Analytics Means New APIs

If you are using the "Universal Analytics" snippet which is Google's new system they are trying to transition everyone over to. Some of the APIs have changed including event tracking.

Make sure you are using this:

ga('send', 'event', category, action, label, value);

Instead of this:

_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', category, action, label, value]);

For event tracking.

Here is a thorough blog post on the subject http://blog.tylerbuchea.com/tracking-events-in-googles-new-universal-analytics/

And here is the new documentation from Google https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/events

answered Jun 2, 2015 at 19:45

Tyler

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1 Comment

Ezra Free Over a year ago

This was exactly the answer I was looking for, thanks.

viam0Zah · Accepted Answer · 2009-07-18 07:46:18Z

1

it is not recording those hits or showing them in the reports.

Events have no effect on page views and do not appear on regular reports. Events have a seperate interface at Content / Events. If you'd like to track the things you specified as events like regular hits, better use the trackPageview method instead.

answered Jul 18, 2009 at 7:46

viam0Zah

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2 Comments

slolife Over a year ago

You are correct, events are not regular page hits. Unfortunately (for me), I did know that, but the events are still not showing up in Content/Events.

viam0Zah Over a year ago

@slolife: have you tried to manually change the URL? For instance, click on ‘Content/Site Search’ and replace ‘site_search’ with ‘events’?

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