How Google Analytics Event Tracking Works on SEO Tests

When you set up Google Analytics event tracking on an SEO test in SEOTesting, a common question is whether the tracked events are scoped to the specific test page or across the entire site. This article explains how it works.

Landing Page-Based Tracking

Event tracking on tests is based on the landing page — the first page a user visits when they arrive on your site from a search engine. SEOTesting uses Google Analytics 4's landingPagePlusQueryString dimension, which is session-scoped. This means:

• The URL in your test is matched against the entry point of the user's session
• Any key events the user triggers during that session are attributed to that landing page, even if the user navigates to other pages before completing the event

A Practical Example

1. A user clicks a Google search result and lands on /product-shoes (your test URL)
2. The user browses to /sizing-guide and then /checkout
3. The user completes a purchase on /checkout, triggering a purchase key event

In this scenario, the purchase key event is counted for your test because the session started on your test URL.

What Isn't Counted

Sessions where the user enters your site on a different page and then navigates to your test URL are not counted. The test URL must be the landing page — the very first page viewed in the session.

For example:

1. A user lands on /homepage from Google
2. They navigate to /product-shoes (your test URL)
3. They complete a purchase

This session's events would not be counted for the test, because /product-shoes was not the landing page.

Why It Works This Way

This behaviour comes from how Google Analytics 4 scopes its dimensions:

• Session-scoped dimensions (like landingPage) capture a single value for the entire session — the first page viewed. All events in that session are grouped under that value.
• Event-scoped dimensions (like pagePath) capture the specific page where each individual event occurred.

SEOTesting uses the session-scoped landing page dimension because it aligns with how SEO tests work — you're measuring the impact of changes to a page that users find through search, and you want to capture the full downstream value of that visit.

Summary

The key takeaway: tracking is tied to sessions that start on your test URL, and captures all key events within those sessions regardless of which page the event fires on.

Updated on: 23/03/2026