Google Analytics - utm.gif

utm.gif causing 404

[smallcompany]

So, anyone knows why some clients try to load __utm.gif from local site instead of Google Analytics?

As far as I know, loading this file confirms that Google Analytics loaded right.

In this case it does not load from GA, and it causes 404 on our server.

[smallcompany]

Does anyone get those?

Few weeks ago, I did send few lines of site logs to support, but never heard back from them.

[GAnalyticsAdvisor]

So, anyone knows why some clients try to load __utm.gif from local site instead of Google Analytics?

As far as I know, loading this file confirms that Google Analytics loaded right.

In this case it does not load from GA, and it causes 404 on our server.

Hi smallcompany,

There's really no reason to, unless the client is worried about latency on Google's end.

In fact, we prefer that people link directly from our servers, as our versions are automatically updated whenever a new release goes out. If a client prefers to host the tag locally, it would be a manual effort to make sure that it's up to date.

I hope this helps!

GAA

[smallcompany]

Thanks GAnalyticsAdvisor.

Let me rephrase this:

It is not that they are trying to do that on purpose or that there is different GA setup in place. My GA script is just as it is supposed to be within the code of my pages.

For some reason, some user agents seek for __utm.gif on my server, rather than on google-analytics.

I wonder why? I am guessing that in this case GA did not load properly.

[venti]

We get this all the time as well smallcompany. We also get users requesting ./api/main.js and dommanifest.js

All are to Google products (analytics and maps) that for some reason people's browsers don't handle properly.

[iridiax]

I've seen these strange Analytics 404 errors in my logs from a variety of different IPs and ISPs, but all have the same user agent:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1;1813)