Does ACA (adCenter Analytics) URL decode parameters in a URL? For example, if I were to dynamically insert a keyword phrase into a URL, www.example.com/index.asp?keyword={keyword}, where the value of {keyword} resolved to "award winning widgets" at runtime, the URL would be autmatically encoded as http://www.example.com/inde.asp?keyword=award%20winning%20widgets since HTTP doesn't permit blank spaces in a URL. Would ACA decode the value of the keyword parameter as "award winning widgets?"
An even more interesting topic might be how ACA handles custom parameters passed in a URL.
Hi Charles,
I'll have to do some research on this, as I don't have a direct answer. As to your second question, currently ACA views each complete parameter string as a separate page. If you want to roll them up, you have to specify an exclude for ACA to ignore the parameters and include that page view in the total for the root page. i.e. www.example.com/index.asp?keyword=award%20winning%20widgets would be a different page from www.example.com/index.asp?keyword=award%20winning@20gadgets. Each of those would report on a seperate line. You can put in an CGI Exclude of "keyword" and both of those would roll up to www.example.com/index.asp.
I'll get back to you later today with weather the %20 would be ignored or decoded in reporting.
Got word back from our Developers. Yes, ACA will decode the cgi script so that is shows as "award winning widgets".
Brian, thanks for the follow through, as always.