Capturing HTTP referrer in GA when a 301 is stripping the source parameters

[Saatchi_HU]

Good day,

To make a long story into a short one - have you ever had any experience or encounter where you've needed GA to capture the HTTP referrer of your traffic before a 301 redirect script triggers (and thus strips the original source of traffic)?

I am working with a multitude of sites where the TLD redirects to a language directory, and because many of the referring sites and sources of traffic come into the TLD and then hit a 301, the referring source is then lost and most of this then shows as Direct traffic to the language directory (the effective 'home page').in GA.

Would sincerely appreciate any inputs you might have about how to effectively capture these sources as a workaround. I'm probably in need of a smart analytical fix, a clever tagging method or some development amendment that is unfamiliar to me. For the sake of this discussion, building the TLD up to an existing page is not a viable or feasible fix in this instance.

Thank you!

[AndersS]

Hi!

Are you using clientside or serverside redirects? Since you talk about 301, I assume you use serverside redirects. I think if the rewrite rule is setup correct, then it should preserve the referrer info. But if this is added as e.g. utm_source parameters to the URL, then perhaps you can experiment with the flags set for the redirect rule?

Assuming you are working with an Apache server: Looking at https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/rewrite/flags.html#flag_qsa, it looks as if parameters can be kept/appended to the target URL. Else, the setting [L,R=301] should probably work OK with regards to keeping the referrer.

Hope this helps

Best regards,
Anders