google-analyticsweb-traffic

Google Analytics Behavior Flow does not show traffic from group A to group A

I have a site with content divided into /news/items and /opinion/items.

The Behavior Flow screen shows that there are zero interactions from the content grouping of all /news/items to another /news/items post, and zero interactions from the grouping of all /opinion/items to another opinion/items post.

And this is true for every level of interaction (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) and for every content grouping whether automatic or user defined. No group shows a following interaction to any content in itself.

But when I drill down to the Navigation Summary for any individual /news/items or /option/items post, I see that the most common behavior flow (50%+)is usually to go from one /news/items post to another /news/items post or one /opinion/items to another /opinion/items.

Any clue what's happening?

Lots of Traffic

No Traffic?

Solution

  • To understand why this is happening it's important to understand the visualization first. Behaviour flow visualization is made up of two elements:
    1. Nodes : Points through which traffic flows
    2. Connections : represents path and volume of traffic

    Nodes can represent lot of things depending on chosen view. In your case it's content groupings. By definition of nodes, all the pages which come under one content grouping are one single point. If a user is moving across one content grouping only, he is still on the same point.

    A path will be established only and only when he moves from one node to another, that happens when the user moves from one content grouping to another.

    This is the logical structure of the visualization. Hence you see no traffic from News Post to News Post as the condition to establish a connection is not met.

    What can be confusing here is the heading (titles) like 1st interaction, 2nd interaction but this interaction means interaction with the node or content groups (and event or page in some other view) i.e. interaction with the first content group, interaction with the second content group, not the actual first or second interaction of the user.