WebTrends URL Search and Replace on Domain Names

[hotsnot]

I have a website that uses several domain names (and subdomains) but is actually all the one site.
In my logs, the site URLs are logged as relative URLs and the domain name is logged separately.
For example:
10.2.159.4 www.domain.com - [01/Apr/2004:00:00:05 +0000] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.0" 200 175 "" ""
10.2.159.4 www.dom2.com - [01/Apr/2004:00:00:05 +0000] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.0" 200 175 "" ""
Also on occasion, the IP address will appear in place of the domain name.
In the above example, the index.html file being referenced is the same on both domains, but it's coming up as two different pages in the WebTrends Top Pages report.
I've tried to set up WebTrends URL Search and Replace to replace www.dom2.com (and the IP addresses) with www.domain.com so that the pages don't appear separately in the report, but it's not working. I'm wondering if the URL Search and Replace only works on the relative URL in the "GET /index.html HTTP/1.0" part of log and not on the full absolute URL that includes the domain name.
Anyone have any ideas on this or know any workarounds?
I've found the documentation to be somewhat limited on this subject.

[cgrantski]

Correct, the URL search & replace in WT only affects the path, stem, and query but not the domain.

If all your sites are really the same, would ignoring the domain field completely do what you want? You can do this. Open the profile (it's a *.wpl file) and add this line to the [profile] section:

OverrideMultiHome = 1

I don't remember if you have to restart WebTrends for this to take effect. Hope this solves your problem.

[hotsnot]

Thanks for the reply, cgrantski, much appreciated.

That's a useful trick to know, but unfortunately you were right in guessing that it's not as simple as it appeared.

There are about 5 different domain groups (essentially representing individual sites) on the server. Within each of those groups, there are a few subdomains that are interchangeable as far as page URLs, but are used as different entry points into the site.
Any other ways to trick WebTrends into seeing a subset of different domains as being the same domain?

[cgrantski]

Okay, you can still do it. Put that line (above) in the profile. In fact, make 5 profiles, one for each of your domain families, all with that line in the .wlp file.

Then make five Include filters (hit type, not visit) that INCLUDE only the domains that you want to group together.

Apply one filter to each profile.

What happens is that the filters will allow only the related domains to be included in a report's analysis. And the .wlp file adjustment will force WebTrends to not make distinctions when it's reporting the page views.

Let me know if this works. If WT's behaving as designed, it should.

[hotsnot]

Cool ... that sounds like a plan ... I'll try it out and let you know.
Is there any way to then combine all those profiles into one report on the whole server or am I reaching too far?

Thanks for all your help on this!

[cgrantski]

Just make a sixth profile, no filters, same Override statement in this profile's .wlp file. Everything will be aggregated. That was my first simplistic suggestion for your issue.

Making multiple profiles is one of the main reasons for using the WT software rather than the service (which limits the number of profiles). For any given client I usually end up with a dozen or more profiles because of needing to have different filtering.

[hotsnot]

Thanks cgrantski ... that worked a treat!

[cgrantski]

Cool. (I've gotta start using that phrase, "that worked a treat" - love it)