How To Use Regex In Google Analytics

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Regex, or regular expressions, serve as a potent instrument for data examination within Google Analytics. They enable the filtering and segmentation of your data according to defined patterns or standards. This piece will elucidate the application of regex in Google Analytics and showcase several instances of its utilization.

What is Regular Expressions?

Regular expressions are a set of characters that represent a pattern or sequence. They are commonly used in programming and data analysis to match patterns in text strings. In Google Analytics, you can use regex to filter your data based on specific patterns in the URL, page title, or other dimensions.

How to Use Regular Expressions in Google Analytics

To use regular expressions in Google Analytics, you need to create a custom segment. Here are the steps to do so:

  1. Go to the “Segments” tab in Google Analytics and click on “Create New Segment.”
  2. Select the dimension or metric that you want to filter based on a regular expression. For example, if you want to filter by URL, select “Page” as the dimension.
  3. Click on the “Advanced” tab and select “Regular Expression” from the drop-down menu.
  4. Enter the regular expression that you want to use in the text box. For example, if you want to filter by URLs that contain a specific keyword, you can enter “.*keyword.*”.
  5. Click on “Save” to save your custom segment.

Examples of Regular Expressions in Google Analytics

Here are some examples of how you can use regular expressions in Google Analytics:

  • Filter by URLs that contain a specific keyword: “.*keyword.*”
  • Filter by URLs that start with a specific string: “^string”
  • Filter by URLs that end with a specific string: “$string”
  • Filter by URLs that match a specific pattern: “pattern”

Conclusion

Regular expressions are a powerful tool for analyzing data in Google Analytics. By using regex, you can filter and segment your data based on specific patterns or criteria. In this article, we explained how to use regular expressions in Google Analytics and provided some examples of how it can be used. We hope that this article has been helpful and informative.