PiwikPro missing first entry page view a lot

Data collection and tags
1

I am using PiwikPro for some weeks now, next to GA (universal).

I have installed PiwikPro on 10 websites and comparing the results with GA I notice this:

  • The number of pageviews is almost always lower in PiwikPro (around 8% lower) then in GA.

  • The lower number of pageviews in PiwikPro is almost always counted for the Homepage of the website, which is also most of the time the Entry page of the visitors.

  • So for the Home page I see lower pageviews and lower amount of Entries in PiwikPro.

  • But all the other pages from the website show 99% the same amount of pageviews (and Entries) in PiwikPro and GA.

So it seems that PiwikPro is missing the very first pageview from a visit too frequently.
Any idea what can cause this issue?

Thanks for the help :slight_smile:

Best Wishes,
Alwin

2

Hi. Are you using a consent manager? What’s your current config?

3

No, I am not using consent manager.

  • Measure scroll depth: OFF

  • Keep anchors in page URL: ON

  • Start a new session when the campaign changes: ON

  • Don’t collect data from known crawlers: ON

  • Collect data only from known sites: ON (also filtered in GA)

  • Track page views in a single-page application: OFF

  • Delay loading the next page: 250ms

  • Start a new session when the referrer changes: ON

  • Ask visitors for consent: OFF

  • Use a session ID: ON

  • Use visitor cookies: OFF

  • Comply with CNIL guidelines: OFF

  • Don’t collect visitor’s device data: OFF

  • Mask IP addresses: ON

  • Collect from unmasked IP addresses: All data

In Tag manager

  • Set a user ID: OFF
  • Outlinks and downloads: ON
  • Interactions with popups and content: OFF
  • Count session time precisely: ON
  • Recognize a visitor across domains: OFF
  • Recognize a visitor across subdomains: OFF
  • Use visitor cookies: ON (to prevent double cookie disabled warning)
  • Remove the visitor cookie at custom time: OFF
  • Consent type: No consent is required
  • Respect opt-out and DNT: OFF
  • Detect JavaScript errors: OFF
  • Track page views manually: OFF
  • Don’t fire in debug mode: OFF
  • Flight dates: Run forever / Run all day
  • Default page view trigger
4

Can you share the URL of website here or on priv? For now I don’t have more ideas, but maybe I’ll be able to find something on the website directly.

5

No problem and thanks for your help:

6

Two things worth checking:

  • IP exclusion list - make sure that it’s exactly the same
  • I see in tracker debugger many visits excluded because of being a known crawler. Those page views occur only on the homepage. Maybe that’s the difference and Google doesn’t exclude these? You can test it for a while by disabling the option to exclude bots by default.
7

I have tracked one excluded visitor (it was a Pingdom check I wasn’t aware was running).

I keep a look at things, thanks so far :slight_smile:

8

Would it also be an option to preload the piwkpro URL with my WP-Rocket plugin?

9

I see the same sometimes, first results include scroll events, but no page view:

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or

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10

That can happen if the visitor switches back to the tab after 30 mins of inactivity. I’d check if there are also other sessions for the same visitor ID.

11

wouldn’t they show up in the debugger then? I’ve set the history to 6h. And I only uses session cookies which live only 30 min?

12

It’s 30 mins from the last activity. To check that you can use both session log and tracker debugger. In session log there’s no limitation when it comes to the timing of the event.

13

Session logs show identical data. No first page view recorded. (I’ve checked sessions older than 3h from now to make sure that they are already in the session log).

14

What I suggested was taking the ID of the visitor that had a session starting with a scroll to check if there are other previous visits done by the same user.

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15

I know :sweat_smile:
And I did, but I don’t see additional logs.
But what I’m thinking right now: I only use sessions to track users. So in that case it’s quite normal that no additional data shows up, isn’t it? :roll_eyes:

16

It depends on your config. By default, the cookie lifetime would be set to 13 months if there is consent. With anonymous tracking (no consent given) each session would have a different Visitor ID even for the same user.

1 Like
17

ok thanks :pray: . The second one is my current config, so then it is clear.

18

Okay, from the 10 websites in my PiwikPro account, 9 of them have around the same amount of pageviews in GA and in PiwkPro now.

But the one website on which it does not match also continuously shows big differences in the number of pageviews. Yesterday again more than 20% difference between GA and PiwikPro.

The whole PiwikPro setup is the same in this one website than in the other 9. However, there is one difference, the 9 websites that match GA pageviews all have a .nl domain extension.

The website on which the number of pageviews does not match has a .net extension. I don’t know if that could have anything to do with it (I don’t think so) but otherwise I don’t know either.