When it comes to Google Analytics there are many mistakes in tracking code that can easily be avoided or fixed. Here are some of the most common mistakes that people make when broken implementations appear in your Google Analytics.

Missing Code
It is easy to simply overlook pages when you are first implementing tracking code. Additionally, code may end up missing because new templates did not receive code, code was deleted during edits to a page, or a special landing page did not receive code.

Make sure everyone on the team knows the tracking code and where it should be placed on each new page.

Duplicate Code
Someone may simply paste the new code twice on the same page …which could cause problems.

Another way that code can be duplicated is adding the code for a new account, to a page that has code from an old account. This is more common than you might think. If you are having tracking issues on a new install of Analytics, check to see if any old code was there first.

Sometimes one snippet of code is on the top of the page and the other is located near the bottom. When this happens a tag management system will send hits to Google Analytics while the code on the page is sending hits to the same Google Analytics account.

Another duplication that may happen is when you have the universal Analytics code and classic Google Analytics code installed on the same page. This scenario also sends twice the hits to your Analytics.

To avoid this problem make sure to regularly monitor and test any changes made to the code.

Missing Subdomain Tracking
Are your users traveling between subdomains? If so, and you do not have subdomain tracking enabled then Google Analytics identifies the first user as another user on the second page. If you need to track users across your subdomains you will want to make sure that you are not relying on the default settings and ensure you have subdomain tracking enabled.

Missing Cross Domain Tracking
Subdomain tracking will not help with users that travel across your different domains. Cross domain tracking needs to be enabled in order to make sure that you are tracking the same user across your different websites.

These are just a few of the common mistakes that people run into when using Google Analytics code. Most of these mistakes can easily be fixed to ensure that you are able to use Google Analytics accurately and effectively.