subdomain report

[#1]

Economist Online would like to see a sub domain report in SiteCatalyst.

Tracking traffic from bloggers is difficult in the interface.  There are two sets of domain reporting, referring domain which is too broad and referrer which is too granular.

For example to know that the following bloggers contributed traffic to you site;
joemygod.blogspot.com, eureferendum.blogspot.com, mjperry.blogspot.com, joemygod.blogspot.com, krugman.blogs.nytimes.com, dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com, andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

You would need to pull all of the referrers a DataWarehouse report a time consuming effort.  You have to pull a few domains at a time as a pull off all referrers for a month will results in a file to large to be opened in Excelit will be too large to open in excel.  You cannot use the Site Catalyst interface as near the end of the month it will exceed the number of items it can store.

Once you have the data you have to take those DataWarehouse reports and sort them in a pivot table.  A subdomain report would solve this issue.

[#2]

While I like this idea as an enhancement, I would just store the referring (sub-)domain into a prop and eVar in the s_code. That's just 2-3 lines of code to shorten document.referrer and would solve your problem for now.

[#3]

Great suggested workaround, Andreas. I'm also going to mark this as "Under Review" in connection with http://bit.ly/i8VMal, which is also Under Review. (The connection may not seem immediately clear, but it's there.)

[#4]

I know it can be in a prop, but I really think it should fall out of the system.  It just makes so much sense.  A good developer could knock this out in 1/2 hour.  Too bad to waste a prop on something so simple.

[#5]

Absolutely, Rhoda! I didn't mean to suggest that this idea has any less validity simply because there is a workaround. My apologies if my comment came across the wrong way.

[#6]

Oh of course, no worries.  

[#7]

The unified sources VISTA rule reports traffic for subdomains exactly like you describe. It's a pain sometimes because you'll get some domains like stumbleupon.com or craigslist.org that will show hundreds of different referrers to your site. But for the case you describe it would be very helpful. When I was at Carfax, for example, it was helpful to see how much traffic we were getting from car listings on dc.craigslist.org vs sf.craigslist.org.

[#8]

We went the prop/eVar route, although I really hate to use them up.  I am not a fan of VISTA rules as they are inflexible and the cost.  At least short term we are covered.  thanks!

[#9]

The unified sources VISTA is a DB VISTA rule, so it's much more flexible than the normal rule. Also more expensive, though. I've used it at several gigs with great success, but may try my luck with marketing channels going forward.

[#10]

All, we have launched this in a prop and I have discovered an issue you would not have if it is in the regular reporting.  Ben, contact me if you would like to discuss.  thanks!