ga-beacon hits now blocked with GA bot filtering? about ga-beacon

[vitr]

I believe, recently github started using proxy for serving images, e.g
<img src="https://camo.githubusercontent.com/30b62c40871935ce7d4b98bae84dce3cec1ba9b3/68747470733a2f2f67612d626561636f6e2e61707073706f742e636f6d2f55412d37313139362d31302f67612d626561636f6e2f726561646d653f706978656c" alt="Analytics" data-canonical-src="https://ga-beacon.appspot.com/UA-71196-10/ga-beacon/readme?pixel" style="max-width:100%;">
note camo.githubusercontent.com, and you can see only
BROWSER: Camo Asset Proxy 2.2.0 AppEngine-Google;
in Google analytics. I guess, ga-beacon isn't useful for github anymore.

[igrigorik]

@MarkEdmondson1234 good question, not sure.. @philipwalton any insights on this one?

@vitr yeah, that's a separate topic, see: 6acd862

[philipwalton]

I assume it's probably related to some sort of spam filtering, but I don't know for sure. I'll look into it.

@MarkEdmondson1234 I'm sure you already know this, but you could turn off bot filtering and add your own filter that's probably as or more effective.

@igrigorik maybe this isn't possible anymore if what @vitr is saying is true (Github proxying img urls), but with GA it's possible to use UA and IP overrides, which might also help make the hits not seem so bot-like. Using the UA and IP overrides will also allow these hits to have the proper GEO and browser data in GA.

[LindaLawton]

Little update on this. @MarkEdmondson1234 spoke to the GA Dev team and this is being looked into on their side. The answer we got from them is that it is possible that things are being blocked.

[igrigorik]

@philipwalton we do set the IP and UA overrides:

• https://github.com/igrigorik/ga-beacon/blob/master/ga-beacon/ga-beacon.go#L83
• https://github.com/igrigorik/ga-beacon/blob/master/ga-beacon/ga-beacon.go#L58

@MarkEdmondson1234 any updates on this one? Anything actionable for ga-beacon?

[MarkEdmondson1234]

@igrigorik all I can report is that using bot filtering still prevents these hits appearing in the GA account with bot filtering turned on. I don't think there is much that can be done your end.

As an example, I use the beacon at the bottom of this URL http://markedmondson.me/enhance-your-google-analytics-data-with-r-and-shiny-free-online-dashboard-template and see 389 hits in the raw data profile, none in the bot filtered one.

It won't work on Github anymore due to the image hosting, but its still useful for me to get a quick measurement for lots of users into one account where you can host the image.

[igrigorik]

@MarkEdmondson1234 thanks for the update, makes sense.

Re, GitHub: there may be a workaround.. see #47.

That said, closing this thread, as there is nothing ga-beacon actionable here.