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The moderator-only analytics tab contains a list of search keywords that the people that arrived at our SE site used for their search. I've noticed quite some strange results in the list on Skeptics.SE, search terms that don't even appear on our site and look like they would belong to a different SE site.

Examples:

  • tension in centre of spinning rope
  • apple stackexchange
  • attack a player die2nite
  • personal finance stack exchange
  • ez430 chronos mac os x

What is going on there? Are some results mixed up between different SE sites?

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  • 4
    I don't have an exact answer, but I have been told by various moderators that these analytics do in fact include a few items here and there which correspond to a different site. No explanation of why it happens, just that it does. – Grace Note♦ May 27 '11 at 12:08
  • I can confirm this for Graphic Design, I've heard it's a common phenomena. – PearsonArtPhoto May 27 '11 at 13:09
  • Ditto SFF, where "views 3" contextual filter block url drupal 7 has been hovering near the top for months (along with a few others of doubtful relevance). – Gilles May 28 '11 at 0:08
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This is totally out of my control.

All the SE sites share the same analytics code, I specify a domain filter there, but for some reason Google is not filtering properly with the keyword searches.

That said: we now have our own logs that are far more accurate, we could possibly look at porting this section over to use them.

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    While I'm complaining about this, I'll add that the numbers for some keywords also don't make any sense. E.g "ostrich pull off its own head" shows about 500 hits in the keywords, while the question this is about only has about 110 hits. Something doesn't add up there. – Mad Scientist May 30 '11 at 13:55
  • Curious, why not have separate Google Analytics codes? It hinders the deployment somewhat, but it does guarantee a better separation of concerns. – casperOne Jun 4 '12 at 16:35

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