RegEx ebook Answers – for Google Analytics
A couple months ago, I published a RegEx for Google Analytics ebook. You can download the ebook or just “page through it” online . The last page was a quiz, and I promised the answers — here they are:
- Question 1: Write a Regular Expression that matches both dialog and dialogue.
- Answer: Since you should always keep your RegEx simple, my best answer would be dialog|dialogue . Slightly more elegant but more complicated would be dialog(ue)? I’ll just invite others here (and for every other answer) to submit alternative ideas.
- Question 2: Write a RegEx that matchest two request URLs: /secondfolder/?pid=123 and /secondfolder/?pid=567 (and cannot match other URLs)
- Answer: ^/secondfolder/\?pid=(123|567)$ — note, I chose to put a dollar sign at the end so that the regex stopped matching if anything came after the three digits at the end of the target strings.
- Question 3: Write a single Regular Expression that matches all your subdomains (and doesn’t match anything else). Make it as short as possible, since Google Analytics sometimes limits the number of characters you can use in a filter. Your subdomains are subdomain1.mysite.com, subdomain2.mysite.com, subdomain3.mysite.com, subdomain4.mysite.com, www.mysite.com, store.mysite.com and blog.mysite.com
- Answer: There are lots of ways to do this. My choice would be: (subdomain[1-4]|www|store|blog)\.mysite\.com$
- Question 4: Write a funnel and goal that includes three steps for the funnel and the final goal step (four steps in all), using Regular Expressions. Notice that there are two ways to achieve Step 2.
- /store/
- /store/creditcard or store/moneyorder
- /store/shipping
- /store/thankyou
Answer: This one requires a picture:
The RegEx for Step 2 is hard to read in the picture above, it is /store/(creditcard|moneyorder)$ . Notice that I added a dollar sign at the end of all the expressions above. Without context, it is hard to know which ones are mandatory, but we know for sure that the dollar sign in Step 1 is mandatory. That dollar sign is required, not because of regular expressions, but because of the strange way funnels sometimes work. For more information on that one, you might want to read this excellent post on goals and funnels that Jonathan Weber of LunaMetrics wrote.
Finally, let me end with a great quote! (I didn’t ask permission to use her name, so I will just use an initial.) This reader wrote me yesterday to ask, where were the answers? Here is part of what she wrote:
Seriously, your ebook was so full of win. I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around RegEx and have been using the basics in GA for a while. But I really expanded my understanding b/c your explanations were so plain English and applicable to GA. A lot of tutorials I saw online weren’t written for GA and were written by propellerheads, I suspect.
Having worked for a graphics publishing company, I also REALLY appreciated the layout, font treatments, and graphics. A world-class job all the way around. — A
– Robbin
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I’m going to suggest that for Question #1, an even simpler regular expression to match both “dialog” and “dialogue” is simply… “dialog”.
There’s relatively little danger of matching any other word we don’t want, and in situations like this, usually we’re looking for keywords or something like that, so “dialogs” and other variations are OK (desirable, in fact).
Thanks for the RegExp book. Being a programmer, I already knew RegExps but I’ll forward this to a colleague who doesn’t (yet).
So I’ll be a touch pedantic.
Q3. I actually had this down as a trick question, as it asks for *all* subdomains, and then goes on to list them. Where ‘them’ equals the current set of subdomains/names.
I’d have gone for the straight: “\.mysite\.com$”
The plus side being that it will automatically include new domains when they arise without any effort to add them.
The downside is the exact same reason. eg testing-developers.mysite.com probably shouldn’t be included, but will with my proposed.
I guess this is one of those classic ‘it depends’ cases. Where knowing the org and it’s history around web properties is very useful.
Have I managed to sit astride the fence nicely?
Cheers!
It’s a good answer. And I have nothing but thanks for your teacherly-capabilities!
Your posts are awesome, I hope you are considering writing a book on this stuff. I’m adding you to my RSS list. Bravo.
Searchengineman
I thought this was a book! Seriously — I did want to write a book, but didn’t look hard enough for a publisher. thanks for the vote of confidence — Robbin
I applause your blog
Robbin, your ebook on RegEx is so darn helpful and easy to read. Thank you so very much for putting this together and offering it to the public. I wish you great success and happiness!
-Don
Don, comments like yours are absolutely smile-worthy. thanks – R
Great book!
I’m having some trouble to make a regex to add to my funnel though, maybe you could help me?
I’d like to include all pages that contain the word checkout, but not success or cart. For instance, /checkout/step1 should match, but /checkout/step1/cart shouldn’t.
I’ve tried .*/checkout[^(success|cart)]* on the filter but I still see the cart and success pages on the results.
Bani, you are looking for something that has been disabled in Google Analytics, it is called “negative lookahead.” Your funnel won’t work until you actually change the URLs (makes me think I should change the Google Analytics Friendly web design post to handle your issue, too…..)
I don’t know that much about your site, but why don’t you try Exact Match instead of regular expression match? That should do it, but might be too specific for your needs.
Your ebook is fantastic! I struggle with regular expressions and your ebook presented in a clear, concise and fun fashion. RegEx just became clearer for me. I am glad you put such Art into the Universe. Bravo