What does the utmscr or utmcct values mean in reference to the Http cookie Server variable?

Question

What does the utmscr and/or utmcct values mean in reference to the Http cookie Server variable? Are they acronyms or short for something?

We are getting Elmah errors with the title "System.Web.HttpException: Unable to validate data." In each Elmah error message, the Http Cookie server variable value contains a property called utmscr set to the same Web site and utmcct set to a page at that Web site. Here is a section from the Http Cookie Value from the Elmah Server variables dump.

utmccn=(referral)|utmcsr=someWebSite.com|utmcct=/someWebPage.htm|utmcmd=referral; CP=null*;

The someWebpage.htm page does exist at someWebsite.com but does not currently have a reference to our page. We think the error is related to view state. Any thoughts? Thanks!

Feodor

Answer 1

My guess, like that of dr. evil, is that it's something to do with Google Analytics or gaforflash.

On this page

http://gaforflash.googlecode.com/svn-history/r330/trunk/src/com/google/analytics/campaign/CampaignTracker.as

I found this comment block:

 /**
         * Format for tracker have the following fields (seperated by "|"):
         *         <table>
         *           <tr><td>utmcid - lookup table id</td></tr>
         *           <tr><td>utmcsr - campaign source</td></tr>
         *       <tr><td>utmgclid - google ad click id</td></tr>
         *           <tr><td>utmccn - campaign name</td></tr>
         *           <tr><td>utmcmd - campaign medium</td></tr>
         *           <tr><td>utmctr - keywords</td></tr>
         *           <tr><td>utmcct - ad content description</td></tr>       
         *         </table>
         * should be in this order : utmcid=one|utmcsr=two|utmgclid=three|utmccn=four|utmcmd=five|utmctr=six|utmcct=seven
         * 
         */

That, or something related, is possibly where your values are coming from.

Wyandotte

Answer 2

This should be a Google Analytics cookie or some other 3rd party tracking cookie. I don't know if that helps :)

Neruda

Answer 3

This is for the Google Analytics cookies to identify where the source is coming from, such as in initial click events.

For example, if a user clicks your site from Google Ads, then you get the following parameters:

utmcsr=google|utmcmd=cpc|utmccn=UK_Search_Competitor|utmctr=sample

Here, utmcmd stores the CPC value.

In case the user clicks your site directly without Google Ads, you might expect the following parameters:

utmcsr=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)|utmccn=(not set)

Let me know if this helps.

Alexina