By default, Analytics captures the URL and page title dimensions for the pages visited by your users. But if you are a content publisher, you may need to know more about those pages, such as the author, date published or article category. By uploading content metadata, publishers can get a much richer view of their site performance than simple Pageview or Bounce Rate metrics.
In this article:How Content Data import works
Content Data import works by using a Content ID as a key. The Content ID can be extracted from the Page dimension of your visitors' hits. For example, if the articles on your site are named /articles/article_id.html, where article_id is a unique identifier, then you can extract that using a regular expression when you create the Data Set key. See the Content Data import example for a demonstration of how to do this.
The content metadata you upload is stored in custom dimensions. For example, for a given Content ID, you might upload the author of that article to an Author custom dimension, or content category to a Category custom dimension.
Analyze and take action
You can report on uploaded Content Data using custom reports, as well as through the Core Reporting API.
You can also apply Segments using imported Content Data that use Processing Time mode Data Import. (Query Time Data Import does not support Segments at this time. Learn more about Query Time and Processing Time Data Import.)
Data Set details
The Data Set is the container that will hold your imported data. Expand the section below to see the Data Set details.
Data Set detailsLegend:
- Scope—the scope determines which hits will be associated with the import dimension values. There are four levels of scope: hit, session, user and product. Learn more about scope.
- Schema Key—lists the key dimensions or metrics. The key is used to join the data you upload with the existing data in your hits for this Data Set type.
- Imported Data—lists the dimensions and metrics available for the data you upload to Google Analytics.
| Scope | Hit |
|---|---|
| Schema Key | Either of the following:
|
| Imported Data |
Custom dimension (hit scope) |
| Notes | |
