googlebot visiting my google analytics virtual pageview URLs

Question

For a certain group of pages on my site, I send google analytics a virtual pageview. So, as an example, instead of the page being /username, I track it with google analytics using /profile/username like this:

_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/profile/username']);

Works great it seems. Except I'm seeing TONS of the above virtual URLs in my website logs with googlebot as the user-agent! Why is google visiting my virtual URLs? Did I do something wrong above? Is this normal?

So, questions to potentially eliminate causes: Have you setup the Webmaster Tools/Google Analytics integration? Is it possible someone on your site used the top URLs in Google Analytics to populate a Site Map? Do you use In-Page Analytics frequently? — Yahel
On Webmaster Tools, I don't see any setting for a Google Analytics integration. We have not setup a Site Map yet. I don't know what In-Page Analytics is. Basically nobody knows about this virtual pageview URL except google analytics. — at.
Bizarre. Looks like this is a long-running, unresolved thing: google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Analytics/… — Yahel

Yahel Yahel · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-19T12:22:56

It looks like this is a long-running problem, going back to December 2009.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any explanation as to why or how this is happening.

googlebot visiting my google analytics virtual pageview URLs

1 Answers