Skip to content
New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Jump to bottom

[RFC] Best way to track 404 errors? #6580

Open
mpdude opened this issue Nov 3, 2014 · 3 comments
Open

[RFC] Best way to track 404 errors? #6580

mpdude opened this issue Nov 3, 2014 · 3 comments
Labels
RFC Indicates the issue is a request for comments where the author is looking for feedback.
Milestone
Backlog (Help wan...

Comments

@mpdude
Copy link

mpdude commented Nov 3, 2014

There is a FAQ entry how broken URLs/missing pages can be tracked. It suggests tweaking the tracked page title to contain the page title, HTTP referer and page URL.

This looks a bit hackish to me, so I figured out how custom variables and segmentation could also be used to achieve similar results and wrote a blog post about it. What I did not know at the time of writing is that the "Actions > Page Title" report will split the title at boundaries ("/" by default) and provide aggregated numbers. So, you should be able to get information for a) all 404 pages, b) for a particular missing URL and c) for all referers to a particular URL.

Then I came across matomo-org/developer-documentation#19 where custom variables are used on the error page, just like described in my blog post.

Thus, I'd like to open a discussion on which way might be better. What are the pros and cons of each? Does one yield insight the other one cannot provide? Does it make sense to use both?

Some aspects to get us started:

  • What is better from a UX point of view: Can the numbers easily be found in the Piwik UI?
  • Do we get any inconsistencies in numbers between page title and URL reports?
  • Should 404s qualify as "page views" at all?
  • Can we get the top missing pages and the inidividual pages that linked there?
  • Can we find out what users did once they hit 404?
@wikiloops
Copy link

Hey :)
I'd like to add some thought here, have been thinking about "error tracking" myself lately, not restricted to 404 tracking, but on a more general level - hope you'll agree the following is worth considering in the context you adressed here.

From a UX point of view both ways you adressed have in common that a user has to take action, either by checking the "Actions > Page Title" report and looking at the Transitions-Popup, or by switching to a segment displaying the results of a custom variable.
The latter version requires more set up work, so much can be said without looking at the value of information found by either approach.

What I perceive as much easier UX wise is the following concept:
By defining a visit to my custom 404-page as a PIWIK-"goal", I will get very obvious visual markers within the standard display of pages navigated by a user, and will be able to follow the pre- and post activity around the event at first sight.
I just tried, and it seems it is not possible to create a segmentation-by-goal at this point, which would be usefull to spot less common navigation-trails I might otherwise miss.

Reading thru the PIWIK documentation, I found the "Ecommerce Activity log", which seems to be capable of showing the data I was looking for, if I'd dare to declare the 404 as an ecommerce goal.

What I am trying to point out is: It would be very helpfull to have error indication at the same display level as the "flag / shopping cart" icons - and since we are tracking "anti-goals" here, some less enthusiastic icon would be needed :) The ecommerce reports looked very promising for setting a focus on visitors which experienced errors, so maybe a solution can be found there.

@mattab mattab added the RFC Indicates the issue is a request for comments where the author is looking for feedback. label Nov 3, 2014
@mattab mattab added this to the Piwik 2.10.0 milestone Nov 3, 2014
@wikiloops wikiloops mentioned this issue Nov 9, 2014
Open
@mattab mattab self-assigned this Nov 17, 2014
@mattab mattab removed their assignment Dec 5, 2014
@mattab mattab modified the milestones: Piwik 2.10.0 , Short term, Piwik 2.11.0 Dec 5, 2014
@mattab mattab modified the milestones: Piwik 2.12.0, Piwik 2.11.0 Feb 9, 2015
@mattab mattab modified the milestones: Piwik 2.13.0, Piwik 2.12.0 Mar 17, 2015
@mattab mattab self-assigned this Mar 17, 2015
@mattab mattab modified the milestones: Short term, Piwik 2.13.0 Apr 10, 2015
@mattab mattab removed their assignment Apr 10, 2015
@hpvd
Copy link

hpvd commented Sep 19, 2016 •
edited

maybe a list of all 404 urls and the referres used to go there
could e.g. be also part of a new plugin which provides a new menu point: "Find the bad"
and also contains the functions:
"Inverse" page tracking - to find bad pages #10519
"Inverse" Custom Event tracking - to find bad elements/functions #5186
"Inverse" Content tracking - to find bad pieces of content #10520

what do you think?

@hpvd
Copy link

hpvd commented Sep 19, 2016 •
edited

this is also related to
Improve 404 errors reporting: new dashboard widget for 404 #3563

@hpvd hpvd mentioned this issue Sep 19, 2016
Open
@samwilson samwilson mentioned this issue Jan 10, 2024
Open
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment
Assignees
No one assigned
Labels
RFC Indicates the issue is a request for comments where the author is looking for feedback.
Projects
None yet
Milestone
Backlog (Help wanted)
Development

No branches or pull requests
4 participants
@mattab @mpdude @hpvd @wikiloops