Question

I run a standard google analytics tracking code (ga.js asynch version) on a website.
I am wondering if there is a line of js I can add to the tracking code so that I can segregate dev/prod data? e.g. when I pull in the codebase to do dev work, I can set the tag to DEV. When releasing back to production, DEV tag gets replaced with PROD tag.

Is this even possible and if so, how do i implement it?

One method I thought of is just to create a new “property” (which would generate a new ua number, which I could add during dev. that would allow me to track it all separately.)

Wondering if there are any other methods I should consider.

Answer 1

I’m not worried about collecting data from my development server, but I do want to make sure I’m not polluting my production data — I’ve been using some variation of the following:

if (!/devServer|localhost/.test(window.location.hostname))
{
    _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-11111111-1']);
}

On the devserver domain (or on localhost), _setAccount doesn’t get executed, so the tracker defaults to the default tracker, UA-99999999-1. This allows you to still see tracking data being sent to the analytics servers (via ga_debug.js, chrome dev tools, firebug, fiddler, etc), but doesn’t register against your production profiles.

Downsides — it is an extra bit of code that get’s run on the client.

If you do want analytics from your development servers, you could try something like:

gaq.push(
    [ '_setAccount', 
      /devServer|localhost/.test(window.location.hostname) ? 'UA-11111111-1', 
    'UA-22222222-1']
);