It has been a long time coming, and for some, the wait continues, but for others the ability to link together Google Analytics and Google AdSense is no longer a dream.
Over the past few weeks Google has been allowing webmasters to link their AdSense account with their Analytics account. I have seen the notice in my AdSense account for a couple of weeks. Only today have I dared to dive into the process – I have to admit to dreading the thought of updating my biggest site, which consists of hundreds of HTML pages and is managed by hand, as I knew an extra snippet of code would have to be added to each page, and the thought of doing that did not fill me with glee.
If you monitor one website with Google Analytics then you don’t need to do anything, apart from activate the linkage. If you monitor multiple websites you will need to add an extra snippet off code to each page of each website you want to track. The good news is that Google will allow you to select one site as the primary site, and this one does not require any further code. Even better than that; you can change the primary domain from the site you currently have defined as the primary domain to another of your choice.
Where does the code go?
Google will guide you through the integration process and will supply you with the snippet of code required for each site (in step 2). Each snippet should be added to the top of page (before any AdSense adverts). However, it is not made clear if the code should be placed within the <HEAD></HEAD> or <BODY></BODY> tags.
The code itself is a small piece of javascript. I checked a few help pages and performed a couple of searches trying to find clarification, but I couldn’t find any conclusive information. I take this to mean it doesn’t matter where the code is placed, as long as it is above the AdSense adverts.
Nearly all of my other websites are powered by WordPress and I have decided to place the code within the <HEAD> section. This is really to keep uneccassary code out of the <BODY> section. The good thing about running a website though a system like WordPress is that I only have to update one file (header.php) per website.
Once the code has been placed on the site and the pages uploaded or saved, it will take a bit of time for the data to be available within your Analytics account. To view the data from inside your Analytics account you have to look in the CONTENT section.
