UA code is displayed in header

Hi again, I noticed that from v1.2 of the plugin you need to use the whole analytics.js snippet in the textarea Settings > Google Universal Analytics changing the UA- code inside the snippet. Thing is, if enter only the UA- code you will get the problem I was describing before.

I thought the whole purpose of the plugin was to wrap up this snippet so the user only needs to enter the UA- code ??

Anyway, since we need to enter the whole snippet do not apply the change I proposed above. Here is the snippet you need for the lazy ones:

analytics.js

I would recommend changing the piece of code I was on before with this one:

function google_universal_analytics() {
  $web_property_id = get_option('web_property_id');
  if( strpos($web_property_id, 'UA-') != 0 )
    echo $web_property_id;
}

This fixes showing the UA-XXXXX in the header if only this code is entered and displays the analytics snippet otherwise. Not a nice solution because I know, but works for now!

Hi estepix,

Thanks for the above code recommendation. It works exactly as you described and is working just fine in WordPress v3-6.

The analytics.js reference provided is correct and only shows two of the available parameters being used.

ga('create', 'UA-XXXX-Y');

When the full block of js code is copied out of the official Google Analytics administration panel, it does have a third parameter.

ga('create', 'UA-XXXX-Y', 'DOMAIN.TLD');

This would explain the plugin upgrade instructions to no longer use just the UA code but to have everyone update their ‘WordPress’ -> ‘Settings’ -> ‘Google Universal Analytics’ option to be the full js code; no longer just the UA code itself.

I agree this is sad because the whole point of the earlier versions of this plugin was to allow us to only enter the UA code in the options and the plugin took care of the rest.

Upgrading “Google Universal Analytics” plugin from v1-1 to v1-2 is NOT backwards compatible and effectively brakes the web site.

So here is some code to make it backward compatible.

The following code has been packaged into a WordPress plugin installable ZIP:

function google_universal_analytics() {
  $web_property_id = get_option( 'web_property_id' );

  // Is the option just the UA id?
  $web_property_id_p1 = strtoupper( trim( $web_property_id ) );
  $web_property_id_p2 = '';
  if ( strpos( $web_property_id_p1, 'UA-' ) === 0 ) {

    // Does the option have a second parameter? (Comma separator)
    $web_property_id_p2_pos = strpos( $web_property_id, ',');
    if ( $web_property_id_p2_pos !== false ) {

      // Isolate the first parameter.
      $web_property_id_p1_pos = strpos( $web_property_id_p1, ',');
      if ( $web_property_id_p1_pos !== false ) {
        $web_property_id_p1 = substr( $web_property_id, 0, $web_property_id_p1_pos );
        if ( $web_property_id_p1 !== false ) {
          $web_property_id_p1 = strtoupper( trim( $web_property_id_p1 ) );
        } else {
          $web_property_id_p1 = '';
        }
      }

      // Isolate the second parameter.
      $web_property_id_p2_pos += 1;
      $web_property_id_p2 = substr( $web_property_id, $web_property_id_p2_pos );
      if ( $web_property_id_p2 !== false ) {
        $web_property_id_p2 = strtolower( trim( $web_property_id_p2 ) );
      } else {
        $web_property_id_p2 = '';
      }
    }

    // Build up a whitespace trimmed javascript that is the GA tracking script.
    // Include the option. One or two values.
    $web_property_id_js = '<script>';
    $web_property_id_js .= '(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[\'GoogleAnalyticsObject\']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){';
    $web_property_id_js .= '(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),';
    $web_property_id_js .= 'm=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)';
    $web_property_id_js .= '})(window,document,\'script\',\'//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js\',\'ga\');';
    $web_property_id_js .= 'ga(\'create\',\'' . $web_property_id_p1 . '\'';
    if ( strlen( $web_property_id_p2 ) > 1 ) {
      $web_property_id_js .= ',\'' . $web_property_id_p2 . '\'';
    }
    $web_property_id_js .= ');ga(\'send\',\'pageview\');';
    $web_property_id_js .= '</script>';

    $web_property_id = $web_property_id_js;
  }
  if ( strpos( $web_property_id, 'UA-' ) !== false ) {
    echo $web_property_id;
  }
}

Download: wordpress_plugin_google-universal-analytics_v1-2-0-2.zip

Note: This ZIP is not officially endorsed by anyone. Use at your own discretion after a code review.

Kind regards,
John.

Hi John,

Thanks for clarifying, I didn’t notice the third parameter back then, but you are right, this is probably the reason why the author changed the plugin. It would be nice if he commented on this thread to let us know how is this going to be dealt with in the future.

Regards,
Oscar

At https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1008080 in “To set up the web tracking code,” paragraph 4 instructs:

Paste your snippet (unaltered, in it’s entirety) into every web page you want to track. Paste it immediately before the closing </head> tag.

After installing the plugin and adding my code, I checked a sample page from my site. I note that Google Universal Analytics code is at line 98, and that the closing </head> tag is at line 1194. In other words, the plugin is not placing the code at the bottom of the <head> section.

That being the case, I think I’ll just use my theme’s ability to add code to the <head> section, rather than incur the (very small, admittedly) additional overhead of this plugin.

So I guess I have these questions:

1. Why is Google advising to put the code at the bottom of the <head> section, and if we don’t (neither this plugin nor my theme does this according to the Google instructions in this regard), what could go wrong?

2. Am I right that, all things being equal, it’s probably better to not use this or any plugin to added the code when my theme provides a way to do that without another plugin?

Closing the topic. New version is available ??