Correct bounce rate in Google Analytics

A visit on my onw site is not a bounce

[jetteroheller]

My site stucture:

example.com
mobility.example.com
energy.example.com
economy.example.com

On example.com is a yearly best list of all the sub domains.

Something like

top articles 2009
mobility
energy
economy

Every page from 2009 in mobility.example.com has a link to
example.com/2009/mobility.htm

This is, that the user can see, that there are not only articles about mobility, but also energy and economy in 2009.

So it could happen somebody is on

mobility.example.com/2009/article-1.htm clicks and comes to
example.com/2009/mobility.htm clicks there and comes to
mobility.example.com/2009/article-9.htm

How to tell analytics, that all this sub domains are good targets and not bounces?

I have an analytics report for each sub domain and the main domain.

[epistable]

What you want to do is tell Google Analytics that all those domains are the same "site". You can do this by telling analytics to set the cookie to example.com instead of the default behaviour which is mobility.example.com. Here's the support article that explains this:
[google.com...]

[jetteroheller]

Thanks, but I would like to continue to see a different report for each sub domain.

As far as I understand this, I would have with Your solution only one report with all subdomains together.

Different reports are important because when I change my site,
I start testing with several subdomains. So I can compare changed and unchanged subdomains.

[epistable]

As far as I understand this, I would have with Your solution only one report with all subdomains together.

not necessarily. You could have one profile with all the data from all the subdomains put together. That would be your default profile. But then you could create duplicate profiles ( [google.com...] ) for each subdomain where you would have an include filter to only include data from the hostname of the subdomain.

If you really don't want to treat it as a bounce to go from one subdomain to another this is the only way that comes to my mind. If anyone has any better ideas I'd be happy to learn them :)

[jetteroheller]

not necessarily. You could have one profile with all the data from all the subdomains put together. That would be your default profile. But then you could create duplicate profiles

But what happens with all the old data from this subdomains?

I want to compare with previous years.

[jetteroheller]

What would happen with the following?

I change on all my sub domains the code like

* this is a domain with several sub domains.

But each subdomain hat the old profile.

www.example.com UA-NNNNN-1
mobility.example.com UA-NNNNN-2
energy.example.com UA-NNNNN-3

What would be the effect of this?

I mean with the example

mobility.example.com/2009/article-1.htm clicks and comes to
example.com/2009/mobility.htm clicks there and comes to
mobility.example.com/2009/article-9.htm

Current situation:

2 visists, 1 page average on mobility.example.com
1 visit, 1 page avarage on www.example.com

Your proposal with all with the same tracking code:

1 visit, 3 page views average

My idea

1 visists, 2 page average on mobility.example.com
1 visit, 1 page avarage on www.example.com

Would this solve like this?

[jetteroheller]

Just made an experiment on a subdomain only known by me

test.example.com

Tracking code with subdomains.

I made the following visit

test.exampple.com/1.htm
www.example.com/20009
test.exampple.com/2.htm
www.example.com/20008
test.exampple.com/3.htm
www.example.com/20007
test.exampple.com/4.htm
www.example.com/20006
test.exampple.com/5.htm
www.example.com/20005

My expecation:
1 visit with 5 pages on test.example.com
bounce rate 0%

The real result:
5 visits with 1 page in average on test.example.com
bounce rate 100%

So why is with tracking code for subdomains on test.example.com
a click on www.example.com recorded as a bounce?

[epistable]

that is strange- can you post the code you used on both the test.example.com and www.example.com? with your tracking code annonymised of course.

[jetteroheller]

that is strange- can you post the code you used on both the test.example.com and www.example.com? with your tracking code annonymised of course.

On www.example.com

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNN-1");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>

On test.example.com

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNN-24");
pageTracker._setDomainName(".example.com");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>

All watched on MWIE 7, set for show all javascript errors, but no javascript error shown.

[epistable]

interesting. can you try this code? shouldn't make a difference, but it might:
On test.example.com

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-NNNNNN-24");
pageTracker._setDomainName("example.com");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>

the difference is no leading period on the setDomainName call.

[lokesh]

Use Predefined filter with include only traffic to a sub directory.