Available for the following Plan types:
Fullstory Enterprise
Fullstory Advanced
Fullstory Business
Fullstory for Mobile Apps
Fullstory Free
Available to the following User roles:
Admin
Architect
Standard
Pages for mobile apps and web applications differ slightly. See Mobile App Pages in Fullstory for more information.
What is a Page anyway?
In a traditional sense, a “website” is equivalent to a domain (like foo.com), and a “page” within that site is equivalent to a single specific URL (like foo.com/about). For many content-centric landing pages, or basic websites, this definition makes a lot of sense!
But today, most modern websites and web applications do a lot more than just serve static content pages at static locations. Their URLS are more sophisticated, often dynamic, and generally contain data in them.
For example, this URL:
www.ecommerce-co.com/p/special-toaster-over-GHJAVFM/GR12330-1A
is really an instance of a “Product Detail Page”
www.ecommerce-co.com/p/*/*
When analyzing interactions with your Product Detail Page, you usually want to look across all Product Detail Page URLs. You also don’t want to mix in interactions from different pages like the “Search Results Page” or your homepage.
Pages in Fullstory
To scope your page-centered analysis to the right level of granularity, Fullstory uses machine learning to identify general URL patterns across similar page structures and group them into Pages. This doesn’t require any instrumentation on your part. If you see brackets [ ] or asterisks * in your Pages, that means that multiple URLs are grouped together into a single Page.
You will see a list of all your Pages in Settings > Data Management > Pages. Those created by the Fullstory machine learning algorithm, called Learned Pages, will have a purple ML icon.
You also have the option to override these Learned Pages by editing them or creating new ones.
Note: Users with Admin or Architect roles can change their names and/or URL rules. To learn more about editing your Pages, see Page Settings.
These Pages are used for search and page analytics across Fullstory, including Visited Page searches, Click Maps, Scroll Maps, Segment cards, and Page Flow Dashboards cards. You'll also see how users move between Pages on your site when you build Journeys to visualize user navigation.
Because Fullstory is constantly learning about your site’s URL and page structure patterns as your site is updated and traffic patterns change, Learned Pages will evolve over time which may cause data fluctuations for a given Page. The data you see is always using our best fit clustering at the present time, based on historical trends. Fullstory checks for new or updated Pages once a day, though it is rare your Pages will change that often.
If you would not like Fullstory to create pages automatically, you can opt out at the bottom of the settings for Pages. To help us improve Machine Learning Pages, please indicate why you are turning them off.
Example of how Learned Pages work
Imagine you are shopping for blenders on ecommerce-co.com. You could see two different URLs for blenders with different words on the page, but this page is the same Product Details Page.
Fullstory uses machine learning to know which page metrics should be combined across certain URLs by matching their URL pattern and page UI structure, even if the content on each page is different.
The fact that multiple URLs have the same UI structure allows Fullstory to interpret what parts of the URL are variable. Using that intuition, we can turn these URLs...
www.ecommerce-co.com/p/special-blender-GHJAVMY/GR156560-2A
www.ecommerce-co.com/p/other-blender-GHsdfVME/GR123301-1B
www.ecommerce-co.com/p/special-toaster-oven-BLEAVFM/BL133630-8Q
...into this Learned Page:
www.ecommerce-co.com/p/*/*
In some cases, you want to roll up URLs that match a pattern into a single page, while analyzing more specific URLs separately. For example, say your site contains these four URLs:
www.ecommerce-co.com/promo-landing-page-1
www.ecommerce-co.com/promo-landing-page-2
www.ecommerce-co.com/promo-landing-page-3
www.ecommerce-co.com/cart
You see that Fullstory's Learned Pages algorithm has created the page:
www.ecommerce-co.com/*
that combines those four URLs. You might choose to create a new page for
www.ecommerce-co.com/cart
so that you can analyze the Cart page separately from the Promo Landing Pages. Data for pages is mutually exclusive and the more specific page will always outrank the others. So in this case, Cart data will not be rolled into
www.ecommerce-co.com/*
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean when I see a Page that is Not Defined?
When you see a Page that is Not Defined, we are grouping together page views for URLs that are not already defined as a Page in your Fullstory account. By default, Fullstory will create Learned Pages for your most commonly visited pages. We don’t automatically create Pages for all of your URLs so that your experience isn’t cluttered with Pages you don’t care about.
In order to find out what URLs are getting grouped into Not Defined, you can create a Dimensionality card in Metrics or Dashboards for events where the Visited Page = Not Defined, and Grouped by URL or URL Path.
You can add more Pages to capture that additional traffic in Settings > Data Management > Pages by clicking on “Create Page.”
If you use Pages for Mobile Apps, you can follow similar steps to better understand what areas of your app are not instrumented and getting grouped into Not Defined. Create a Dimensionality card in Metrics or Dashboards for events where the Visited Page = Not Defined, and Grouped by App View Name.
Why do I see adjusted time frames in Page Insights and Page Flow cards?
When new Pages are created either by the Learned Pages algorithm or by someone on your team, their data is captured on a go-forward basis only. Therefore, if you look at a Click Map, Scroll Map or Page Flow card for that Page and your original time period starts before the Page was created, Fullstory will let you know that the data actually only goes back to the day the Page was created.
Can a URL be mapped to multiple Pages?
No, URLs will only get counted towards a single Page. This allows you to compare and sort your list of pages without worrying that some pageviews are double counted. In the case there are two Pages that could match to a URL, the more specific one will win. Put another way, the most specific rule will be the rule with the first most specific term, in order of path, fragment, domain.
For example, if you have these two Pages:
- Product Details Page `https://ecommerce-co.com/p/*`
- Product Details Page - Special Blender `https://ecommerce-co.com/p/special-blender-GHJAVMY/`
Any visits to `https://ecommerce-co.com/p/special-blender-GHJAVMY/` will only be counted towards the Page Product Details Page - Special Blender.
What are Visited Pages vs Visited URLs, and when should I use each?
Simply put, “Visited URL” represents one singular URL whereas “Visited Pages” may represent a group of URLs that have similar URL patterns and page structures.
When building a search, use “Visited URL” when you’re interested in sessions where a user visits specific URLs. Use “Visited Page” when you’re interested in sessions where a user visits similar types of URLS (i.e. Product Detail Pages). You can check your Page Settings at any time as a reminder of how similar URLs are grouped for your site!
How can I search for pages?
You are able to search an entire URL of a page in Segments > Event Filters as one option. You can also type a portion of the URL (such as a keyword within it, for example) and this will populate your results. This allows you to more easily find the page you want to analyze in search, Page Flow or Journeys.
Are Not Defined Pages searchable?
Yes! You are able to search for Not Defined pages in Segments > Event Filters.
How long does it take for newly created pages to be generated?
Fullstory checks for new or updated Pages once a day.
Is there a limit on the amount of Pages I can create?
There is a limit of 1,000 for API defined and Machine Learned pages. If the limit for Machine Learned pages are met, Fullstory will stop creating new Machine Learned pages. There is no limit on user-defined pages.
What if the Page I'm trying to define is a URL with query parameters?
In this case, you would need to utilize our FS.setVars API to define these pages instead.
Are Page Definitions retroactive?
No, page definitions are not retroactive. Any changes made to your page rules will apply to future sessions.
What happens when Page Definitions are archived?
When a page definition is archived, our machine learning algorithm won't attempt to create a page definition that matches the archived one moving forward. Any existing sessions that aligned with the archived page definition will remain as it was originally indexed.
Archived pages can still appear in Metrics, Journeys, etc. for historical time ranges, but they won't match any future sessions. They'll still count towards your page limits. If you would like these pages deleted, please reach out to our Support team here.
How does using wildcards (* or **) affect which page rule a URL is mapped to?
URLs will only get counted towards a single Page definition. The page definition corresponding to a URL is determined by identifying the rule with the most specific term that occurs first in the positional order.
For example, if you have these two Pages:*/product-details/product-numberwww.yoursite.com/*/*
Any visits to www.yoursite.com/product-details/product-number would only be counted towards the www.yoursite.com/*/* page rule because when reading the URL, this rule has the first specific match without a wildcard.