Previous page analysis

[xiaoming123]

Hi, 

I am trying to understand the page traffic from Page A to Page B using getPreviousvalue plug. (https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/implementation/vars/plugins/getpreviousvalue)

Steps I have taken to achieve the above objective is as follows:

1. Create a freeform in workspace

2. Selected Page A 

3. Breakdown Page A using Previous Page (getpreviousvalue)

4. Below is a mockup of what i would see on my workspace

Page Name	Page Views
page A	100
Previous Page Name
page A	70
page B	20
home	10

My question/confusion is why Page A is appearing under Previous Page Name. Appreciate gurus' advice.

[leocwlau]

When the user reloads a page, it is a previous page of its own.

[xiaoming123]

The previous page of its own number is pretty high and its consistent across all pages, so I don't think it's the reason. In additional, there is no component that reloads the page by itself. 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Unless your site is accidentally triggering double tracking calls on every page? I have seen that before, this would also inflate your page views, so that should really be tested to make sure that isn't happening.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Quite possibly that is coming from users refreshing on Page A?

I am not sure what "Page A" is in your example, if it's something like a Search Result page, then depending on the naming convention, paginating or applying filters on the result would create new page views, but might not create name variations, so that could also be another possibility.

The best thing you can do is to do a testing session, focusing on actions and navigations that happen on and around your "Page A" but check other pages. You will be able to see what data is being passed into your dimensions.

Also, you should check that if you are using eVars, that these are set to Hit level expiry... it's possible that you are getting attributed data instead of set data in the potential case of the plugin not working.