When I first set up my Github pages Octopress blog I followed those instructions to set Google Analytics tracking up – and it worked. However, in May Google Analytics somehow decided to move my account to Universal Analytics – maybe I had approved it without really knowing what it meant…

Well, what is Universal Analytics? I have no idea! The important thing to notice is, though, that you need to change your JavaScript tracking code if you make that transition; obviously, I didn’t know that. Otherwise tracking wouldn’t work any longer; would it? As a matter of fact, it somehow did.

It is not only not right, it is not even wrong.

Actually, my Analytics dashboard did show some visits and hits, that’s why I didn’t notice the problem for a long time, however, I guess it only mentioned 10% of them! Anyway, after a long debugging session with Google Tag Assistant and Google Analytics Debugger I figured out the necessity to change the code, finally.

Shortly, you just need to change your source/_includes/google_analytics.html to this code:

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{% if site.google_analytics_tracking_id %}
  <script type="text/javascript">
    (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

ga('create', '{{ site.google_analytics_tracking_id }}', 'auto');
ga('send', 'pageview');
  </script>
{% endif %}

Concerning Github pages, it’s not necessary to include a call to set your domain to github.io any longer. It just works out of the box – what a progress! It is not only right, it is not even wrong now!