Rick – you make a good point. I am not a commercial programmer and hence I provide the script “as is” to demonstrate the flexibility of the GA model and what can be achieved. If it’s a valuable hack for your business, my recommendation would be for you to employ a professional to build on top the hack and support it for your specific needs – everyone has their own specific needs! As you are no doubt aware, I am happy for people to reuse, build and enhance and code itself, I just ask you to reference me as the originator.

That said, I am always looking for ways to improve the process myself. If you feel there is value in my company providing support the hacks direct please contact me: brian@this_domain dot com. I am thinking that a paid for subscription service could work…

were you ever able to figure out the issues with ext tracking? i troubleshot that over the past couple weeks and have been able to get mine working with couple of tweaks. let me know if need help rickrferg@gmail.com

Brian Clifton is without a doubt one of the most renowned analytics gurus and has done unbelievable things. I walk in large footsteps.

With respect to the first and last referrer script, a few words of caution. If you’re not an expert with JS I advise against using it. If you are looking for a solution for client or for any situation where updating the script is not easily done, don’t use it.

When Google deprecated some of the language being used in the script it wreaked havoc on a site of mine with 200 subdomains – each owned separately. Visits inflated by the sum of 50,000 per day, all reported in GA with less than 1 pageview per visit and zero seconds time on site. Since 200 site owners are involved in the GATC swap, you can imagine the catastrophe on a collective domain getting 10 million visits a month. I only bring up the loss of the client and an 80% loss of our income to illustrate why caution is advised.

There could be a very simple solution, but i had no one to go but Mr. Clifton, since I’m not all that handy with JS.

Basically, Google doesn’t want you doing this. They will be continuing to change the language used in the api, and will not support it. There have been several updates to the code and we see tweaks/corrections put in frequently. It’s a great script – I’m not arguing against it. Just be aware that if you put this in place it will require maintenance, and during updates it may skew your data to the point of uselessness.

I emailed Brian about my situation some time ago asking for advice and never heard back from him, so it really isn’t “supported” by him either. This isn’t a jab at the reputable Clifton, just trying to make everyone reading and participating in the discussion aware of the implications involved in using the script. And DONT forget to include the advanced filter that isn’t on the script page. Without that your data will be masticated and spit out.

Final point – if you are looking for an awesome solution to track key metrics Google doesn’t allow you to and have easy access to making change on your site – go for it. It’s extremely helpful information.

If you are an agency or manage multiple domains or don’t have easy access to making changes, run away unless you want clients to leave you after their data has been butchered.

My request still stands for even an hour phone call with Brian Clifton if you’re interested – I’m happy to pay you for your time. While these discussions are very helpful, I still don’t see a version that supported by confidence, nor the reasons things are going wrong or the reasons the fixes worked. My priority is to understand what went so horribly wrong and understand why, identify a fix, and understand why the changes in the fix did work.