Are you currently seeing (not set) traffic when viewing the Behavior Report in Google Analytics?
This can happen for a few different reasons. First, let’s define what the function (not set) means. It simply exists as a placeholder that Analytics creates when there is no information received for the dimension that was selected.
The Behavior Report section includes the subsets Behavior Flow, Site Content, Site Speed, Site Search, Events, Publisher and Experiments. The direct section where you would find (not set) is in the Site Content Section, under Landing Pages. These are the pages where visitors started their sessions.
For example, if a visitor found a blog they were interested in via a Google Search and selected its link; they would be brought to the website it’s hosted on, with the point of entry being the blog they clicked on to get onto the website. These landing pages can be found in the Behavior Report. Once in the Behavior Report section, (not set) traffic can then be found by selecting Site Content followed by Landing Pages.
Some of the reasons you may be seeing (not set) are the following:
- When a session with no page or screen view level hits included. This can happen if a filter is set, deleting specific page views or if screen and page tracking settings are set up wrong.
- When a session ends at 1 minute or a visitor is on standby for up to 30 minutes. In a 1 minute period, if a single action is the only hit within a section, the landing page value becomes (not set). And after 30 minutes, any action registers as a new session.
- When a <title> tag in the header of the page is created with errors or is not created at all.
The (not set) prompt can be found in most of the Google Analytics Behavior Reports. As stated above, finding it within the Site Content section is just a few different reasons why this occurs. To learn more about Google Analytics and any questions you may have contact the team at PCG Digital!