Google Analytics Page Report: Landing page /folder/www.example.com

[puckparches]

On Google Analytics Page Report some of the landing pages are:

/www.mydomain.com
/folder/www.mydomain.com

There are no such pages. If I click on the link it sends me to the error page. All my URLs are absolute. I've checked the Referral Path, and on those pages, the URL does not exist.

Any idea what the problem could be?

[not2easy]

By any chance do you (or an employee) have a copy of your domain (or files from your domain) on a computer where pages could be updated for upload? Have you looked at the access logs for the time period where these 'impossible' visits are reported?

[RhinoFish]

Like not2easy, I'm thinking you look at the geo reporting for these pages, when it's your Dev's home town... :-) They often run a web server on the dev machine, install Analytics, and this happens.

[puckparches]

There are no other developer or employee, I do everything :(

[not2easy]

In that case I would be looking at the server access logs to see why GA thinks the folders exist. There are still folks that copy an entire page or pages with all attached files including GA and save to a folder for whatever purposes. Your access logs should show you where the file hits are hosted. Could be a super fan (or something less friendly).

[RhinoFish]

Do you use a VPN when you work?
Did you check the GEO anyhow?
Your server may have and serve absolute, but does your site nav AND sitemap have the same?
Does your database or queries call pages? Inspect the URLs they pull.
Do you use scanning tools to check your site, did you set it to auto explore symlinks or folder names?
Do you serve dynamic content via relative URLs?

[puckparches]

Do you use a VPN when you work?

No VPN

Did you check the GEO anyhow?

Yes, 100% from the US, but from many different states and cities.

Your server may have and serve absolute, but does your site nav AND sitemap have the same?

Yes

Does your database or queries call pages? Inspect the URLs they pull

Queries do no call pages, but I do call images address with an absolute URL

Do you use scanning tools to check your site, did you set it to auto explore symlinks or folder names?

Only Sitemap Writer to get sitemap, but I run the program once every month and the traffic is daily. No symlinks

Do you serve dynamic content via relative URLs?

No

One thing I just notice is that I get the problem with just one folder. I don't get any hits with the domain name at the end with the other folders.

/www.mydomain.com
/folder/www.mydomain.com

I'll keep researching

[puckparches]

Question: Does having a backslash at the end of the URL may have something to do?

Example:
Link to the main page of the folder:

https://www.mydomain.com/folder/index.php

I have the link on navigation menu:

https://www.mydomain.com/folder/

Should I remove the backslash at the end of the link or use the full link?

[not2easy]

That would depend on how you have configured your handling of 'index' files. IF you have

Options-Indexes

in your .htaccess file (or if that is configured in your httpd.conf file) OR if you are rewriting index files to their base URL makes a difference.

What do you get if you paste that link URL https://www.example.com/folder into your browser's address bar?

[puckparches]

What do you get if you paste that link URL https://www.example.com/folder into your browser's address bar?

I get the same result.

https://www.example.com/folder
https://www.example.com/folder/

both go to:

https://www.example.com/folder/index.php

[RhinoFish]

What happens when you try to go to this URL: mydomain.com/folder/ (exactly as I wrote it, no https and no www)

It smells like an htaccess redirect error, I'd try pasting your rules here: [webmasterworld.com...]
There are a few people there who can find these probs lickety split, and a very smart Moderator over there on htaccess.

[lucy24]

Your access logs should show you where the file hits are hosted.

That’s assuming someone is actually going to the files on your site. With GA--or any third-party analytics--they might not be visiting at all. If someone has saved a page to their personal hard drive, and didn’t bother to delete the GA code*, hits could be reported from absolutely anywhere.

In the case of real, physical directories, there is no difference between
/folder
and
/folder/
because the slashless version will always be redirected to the with-slash version (unless you’ve explicitly told your server not to do so), and then this in turn will result in content being served from
/folder/index.html
or
/folder/index.php
or whatever you use as your DirectoryIndex. (Details will vary depending on whether it's an apache server or something else.) But Analytics should generally be reporting the URL, not the physical filename.


* On the rare occasions when I need to save someone else's material to my HD for closer study, the very first thing I do is get rid of any and all scripts--ads, analytics, what-have-you.