Pageviews with the Previous Page vs. Page that is Previous Page

[skatofia]

Hello,

I'm trying to figure out how the top chart has more pageviews that the bottom chart. For context, the top chart is just looking at pageviews where the previous page is the page from the bottom chart. The bottom chart just totals the pageviews for that page. I'm having trouble understanding how it could be more. Shouldn't it be the same or less if users drop off or their last hit is the page from the bottom chart? If a user were to visit a new page or refresh after the page view of the previous page segment from the top, the previous page name would change, so it doesn't make any sense. Is the previous page name evar a session related metric when look at pageviews and it's summing up all pageviews where a session had a hit of previous page name? 

Thanks!

[Jennifer_Dungan]

How did you build your "previous page = X" segment?

[skatofia]

I just looked at hit in the segment:

previous page (prop17) = "page"

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Ok, I assume you are using the getPreviousPage plugin... Is it possible that some of the pages in the top table are the result of "reloads" that could be sending the data a second time?

I don't use that particular plugin, so I can't really test this theory.

[skatofia]

@Jennifer_Dungan We are using that plug-in, but there are different versions spread around the site, which could be causing issues. It could be a reload, but wouldn't the reload switch the previous page to be the same page as the reload? Is there a way to test this too?

See my response to @yuhuisg below too (it contains screenshots without segments in rows and I posted my segment too).

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Well, like I said, I don't use this plugin, I know that this plugin uses cookies to carry forward values (and I don't know if that cookie is deleted after it's used).

My concern is that the cookie is set when you click on a navigation asset, and that it's not deleted.

So you would end up with:
1. Enter Site on Page 1 (no cookie value, no previous page)
2. Click on link "A" (cookie is set to "Page 1")
3. Page 2 is loaded  (cookie is set to "Page 1" and that is tracked in your prop)
4. Page 2 is reloaded (this may not trigger the plugin to set a new value, and if the cookie isn't cleared it will still say "Page 1")

This is speculation, I don't have a working sample site to confirm this.

[skatofia]

@Jennifer_Dungan Thank you! This is very possible this is happening. Certain pages I navigate away from and then come back to, it has a previous page as something I did a while ago and not the actual previous page, so that could be very likely.

[yuhuisg]

When you use segments like that in your freeform table, the totals are simple summations of the individual rows' values.

In your case, I think some double-counting is going on because users could have viewed the same previous page for different next pages.

[skatofia]

@yuhuisg I'm not sure I follow. How could I be double counting when I just want to sum up the pageviews where those pageviews have a "previous page" tag. If that's occurring, the amount should be the same or less than the the total pageviews of the previous page I'm trying to analyze.

For example, let's say page A has 100 pageviews. Page B has a tag with "Previous Page = A" and Page C, etc. have tags with "previous page = A", there could be instances where Page A is the last page view of the session, so pageviews with "Previous Page = A" shouldn't get counted after, only if they viewed it before or they navigate to Page B or C after Page A, where Page B or C would have "Previous Page = A".

I also tried it with removing the segments from the rows and I added Month instead, and I got the same number of pageviews.

[yuhuisg]

I misread your original post. I thought the top chart's segments were where they were for the previous page of which the next page was the page indicated in your bottom chart.