Following a Unique Pageview Path in Google Analytics

[PaulPA]

I am trying to figure out if it is possible to create a report in Google Analytics that looks at the path of a visitor filtered by Unique Pageviews. For instance, I want to see what happens to Unique visitors to the front of my site for one week (e.g., what page they go to next).

When I go to GA I know how to look at Unique Pageviews for a content item (e.g., the site's front page) but when I try to drill down (e.g., Entrance Path) GA only offers this for Total Pageviews.

I've also tried to look at this via Custom Reporting but I'm not seeing it there either.

[toplisek]

Are you looking for paid tracking service or your wish is pure free cost?

[PaulPA]

Just looking to see if it is part of GA free option.

[toplisek]

no, I think not. Are you as business or personal because services can be very expensive?

[PaulPA]

It is not a big deal if it is not an option. It just seems a little odd that Unique Pageviews is not something that can be drilled down.

[phranque]

- "Content" menu
- "Entrance Paths" option under "Navigation Analysis"
- select the "Pageviews" tab above the chart and click the "Unique Pageviews" option

is that what you are looking for?

[cgrantski]

Or, in the Content list of Top Content, click on any of the pages in the list. On the next screen, do what phranque said - choose Entrance Paths from the choices in the panel at the right.

"Entrance Paths" is named oddly, because to me "entrance" means "entered the site." This is really just a "next page viewed" report which I think is what you want.

Bear in mind that these aren't true paths if you are trying to look at paths longer than 2 steps. They are strung-together pairs of 2 steps. So, if the top next page after A is B, and the top next page after B is C, that doesn't mean that anybody actually went from A then to B then to C.

[PaulPA]

Thanks phranque and cgrantski but you'll notice that clicking on Unique Pageviews does not change the number listed for "This page was viewed #*$! times" from what it is under regular Pageviews. It seems to only effect what appears in the graph. I'd like to drill down for Unique Pageviews only.

[phranque]

if it's only a week, get the 7 numbers from the graph and add it up to get the uniques.
=8)

[PaulPA]

phranque - Sorry but I guess I'm not making myself clear on this. So let me try again.

I want to initially filter by only Unique Pageviews. For instance, if total Pageviews are 10,000 and Unique Pageviews are 7,000 then I want to begin the drill down process with the 7,000 and not the 10,000. From these 7,000 I want to look at what they do on the site (e.g., path to next page).

As far as I can tell there is no way to add this up. Filtering, for instance by Entrance Path, only looks at the value of the total Pageviews (e.g, 10,000) and does not offer the values for the Uniques Pageviews (e.g., 7,000). No matter if you click on the tab to change the graphic from total Pageviews to Uniques Pageviews, the filtering still seems based on the Total Pageviews.

Maybe I'm just totally missing this, but that is what I'm seeing.

[gostats]

Just want to clarify:
"total Page views" == Page Views
"unique Page views" == Unique Visitors

Now, you are looking for a way to view the funnel paths of your unique visitors? What sort of data/view are you hoping to see and do you have a format in mind?

[PaulPA]

Unique Pageviews = "A unique pageview, as seen in the Top Content report, aggregates pageviews that are generated by the same user during the same session. A unique pageview represents the number of sessions during which that page was viewed one or more times."

What I'm looking to do, which I thought was pretty simple, is to answer this question: When someone first visits a particular page, where do they go next?

I don't want to count the same visitors multiple times (i.e., Total Pageviews) rather when a single visitor first comes to the page where do they head next. (I assume Unique Pageviews considers only the first instance of a person visiting and not subsequent visits to that same page.)

So essentially the plan was to do the following:
1. Pick a content item (i.e., page)
2. Filter by Unique Pageviews
3. Analyze by Entrance Path to see next page viewed

GA seems to have all the information there but it doesn't seem to be accessible.

[tonynoriega]

that is too detailed for GA, you will not be able to see that...

about the best i can do is look a specific day, in the top conent section, select my cool-page.asp.

look at the navigation analysis. see what pages users are going to next... im sure you have seen that... its broken down by percentages. you can not see how many page views.

that is about as detailed as you can get for what i think you are looking for.

[PaulPA]

Seems that is all that can be done - though I guess I still go back to why have Unique Pageviews as a filtering option if you can't drill down on it.