How can I make sure _gaq.push() works good?

Question

Our client asked us to implement the following Google Analytic code:

_gaq.push(['SX0._setCustomVar', 4, 'xxxx', "yyyy", 2]);

So I've made this, and now I'm looking for a way - how can I check that everything is correct (without actually building GA report)? I haven't did this before - so please sorry if the answer is obvious.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You'll need to define the _gaq variable and load in the analytics script from googles server. After that, you should be able to call the 'push' method.

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXXX-X']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
  var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
  ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
  var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();


// tracks hit for /some/page/
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/some/page']);

After that's done, load up the page in your browser, open up the console, and look in the network tab. Try loading a few pages, and verify that it's asynchronously pushing data to googles servers.

Google uses a .gif image for tracking, so you might try filtering by image and to find request for a file called __utm.gif

If you're still having trouble finding it, you might try the tag debugger plugin by ObservePoint for Chrome or the Official Tag assistant plugin by Google