Question

We started the A/B experiments on our site. Homepage is the tracking site and it redirects to 3 other versions. Since the google analytics script (ga.js) is loaded just after the site is redirected, we are loosing the referrals data. The referral is always the original homepage.

I was not successful in searching for the clear and right solution.

How can I provide the referral to analytics?
Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

So I tried _setReferrerOverride method, but didn’t help.

This code is before the control script (the enter page for visitors, i’m lookinf for referrer here). I’m setting the cookie.

if($_COOKIE[abtestRef]) $_SERVER[HTTP_REFERER] = $_COOKIE[abtestRef];
if($_SERVER[REQUEST_URI]=='/'):
setcookie('abtestRef',$_SERVER[HTTP_REFERER],time()+300,'/','cloudee.eu');

<!-- Google Website Optimizer Control Script -->
<script ....

And here is the tracking script on page which the control script redirects to. So I’m setting referrer from cookie here … but there is no change in GA, so probably I’m doing something wrong.

<!-- Google Website Optimizer Tracking Script -->
<script type="text/javascript">
 var _gaq = _gaq || [];
 _gaq.push(['gwo._setAccount', 'UA-27591323-1']);
 _gaq.push(['_setReferrerOverride','<?=$_COOKIE[abtestRef]?>']);
 _gaq.push(['gwo._trackPageview', '/2713975509/test']);

 (function() {
        var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
        ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
        var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
          })();
</script>

Answer 1

Crayon is right. Here’s an example snippet that works on my site:

      _gaq.push(['gwo._setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-2']);
      if (window.location.href.indexOf('ref=lowcost') >= 0) {
          _gaq.push(['_setReferrerOverride', 'http://www.lowcostairlines.nl/']);
      }
      _gaq.push(['gwo._trackPageview', '/1794361722/test']);