Page tagging

Pages are managed in Product > Pages, which you can find in the left-side navigation. For more details on the Pages page in Pendo, see View and manage tagged Pages.

Tag Pages to track how many people are using your app, where they spend most of their time, and how frequently they return. Tagging Pages is also important for tagging Features in Pendo and creating guides. Specifically, tag Pages to:

• See how your visitors are using the application.
• Monitor the traffic on Pages. 
• Limit Feature click tracking to certain Pages.
• Set a guide to only display on a certain Page.

Page tagging overview

To create Page tags in Pendo (also known as "tagging Pages"), you provide the URL you want to tag, which you can then edit to capture or filter out variations by creating Page rules as appropriate. For more information about creating Page rules, see URLs for Page tagging.

There isn't a right or wrong way to tag a Page. Sometimes, you might want to group all usage in an area of your app into a single tagged Page. Other times, you might want to see usage for a single Page. You can tag both to see the data you want. Overlapping or duplicate tags don't compete. Rather, overlapping and duplicate tags both identify and count the same event.

For example, we have Pendo installed over our Help Center. The base domain, support.pendo.io, is tagged to track usage of the entire website as a single Page. Being able to target a single Page that represents usage of the entire app is a Pendo shorthand that's helpful in segments and reports. Each article is also tagged as a Page to track usage of a single article.

Page tagging rules

Pendo tags Pages based on rules. Page rules define the content and structure of the URLs that Pendo interprets to tag your Pages. At the top of every hour, Pendo matches raw events generated by visitor actions taken in your application against your rules for tagging a Page.

Page tagging rules match the structure of a website URL, but they cut out the parts you don't need and identify the parts you do. Page rules rely on standard URL syntax, such as wildcards (*) to make substitutions and contains to look for specific strings. For guidance on how to edit these rules, including examples, see the URLs for Page tagging article.

Note: Pendo defaults to hiding your domain with a wildcard (*). This is because you might have Pendo installed in multiple environments (staging, testing, and production) and the wildcard helps you avoid tagging each Page again in each environment.

Tag Pages

There are three ways to tag Pages in Pendo:

• Tagging Suggested Pages in Pendo.
• Tagging Untagged URLs in Pendo.
• Tagging URLs in your application with the Visual Design Studio.

Suggested Pages

In Pendo, navigate to Product > Pages to view untagged URLs that appeared in your events in the last five days. For instructions on how to tag these URLs, and how to activate or deactivate the Suggested Pages feature, see Suggested Pages.

Untagged URLs

In Pendo, navigate to Product > Pages > Untagged URLs to see what URLs in your app haven't been tagged as Pages in Pendo. This lists all of the URLs where Pendo is installed that have generated Page load events that didn't match any existing Page tagging rules.

To tag a URL in the Untagged URLs table:

1. Select Tag URL next to the untagged URL you want to tag, then choose whether you want to Create New Page or Merge With Existing.
2. If you're creating a new Page, enter a Page Name that aligns with your company's naming convention for Pendo Pages and select a Product Area from the dropdown menu. If you're merging with an existing Page, select the existing Page from the respective dropdown menu.
3. Under Selection Rules, choose one of the following methods for creating a rule: Suggested Match, Exact Match, Rule Builder, or Custom URL. For guidance, see Page rule options in this article.
4. Select Save to add the Page to your Pages list.

You can also add additional rules after you’ve created the Page by opening it from the list in Product > Pages and editing the Include Rule and Exclude Rule sections.

Note: For more information on untagged URLs, see Manage untagged URLs.

With the Visual Design Studio

You can tag a URL within your application using the Visual Design Studio.

In Pendo, navigate to Product > Pages and then: 

1. In the top-right corner, select Tag Pages.
2. Enter the URL of the target page of your application into the text field.
3. Choose a tagging mode: Tag side-by-side or Tag in an overlay. For more information, see Tagging with the Visual Design Studio.
4. Select Launch Designer to load the Visual Design Studio.
5. In the Page tab of the Visual Design Studio, select Tag Page.
6. Select Create New Page at the top of the Visual Design Studio.
7. Enter a descriptive name that follows your company's naming convention for Pendo Pages.
8. Add a description, up to 280 characters, so that others know what URL you're referring to in your app.
9. Optionally, assign a Product Area to the Page using the dropdown menu.
10. Create "include rules" using one of the following methods for creating include rules: Suggested Match, Exact Match, Rule Builder, or Custom URL. For guidance, see Include rules in this article. A Page must consist of at least one include rule.
11. Optionally, create "exclude rules" using either the Rule Builder or Custom URL to exclude URLs from the Page you're creating. For guidance, see Exclude rules in this article.
12. Optionally, add more rules as appropriate using the + New Include Rule and + New Exclude Rule buttons. You can also add additional rules after you’ve created the Page by opening it from the list in Product > Pages and editing the Include Rules and Exclude Rules section.
13. Select Save to create your Page and add it to your Pages list.
14. Close the Visual Design Studio using the Exit button. This is in the bottom-left of side-by-side mode, and in overlay mode, in the top-right or bottom right of the page you're on depending on where you have the action bar.

Page rule options

Page rules allow you to edit what Pendo counts towards a Page view, such as variations of the same URL. For example, you might want Pendo to treat multiple URLs in your application as the same Page for analytics and guide targeting. You can use multiple rules to do this.

You can create both include and exclude rules. Include rules filter URLs to include only those that match the URL patterns you define for the Pendo Page you're creating. Exclude rules prevent URLs that match the URL patterns you define from being included in the Pendo Page you're creating.

If a Page tag consists of both Include Rules and Exclude Rules, Pendo first checks whether a URL matches any exclude rules, preventing any views of that URL from being counted towards the Page view data. Pendo then checks for matches against include rules, counting any remaining URLs that match any of the include rules towards the Page view data.

Include rules

You must create at least one Include Rule to tag a Page. Include rules define what URL patterns to capture in a Page. When tagging a Page in the Visual Design Studio, you have the following options for creating an Include Rule:

• Suggested Match. This is the automatic rule created by Pendo. Sometimes, this doesn’t ideally capture what you need it to, which is why we’ve created the following additional options for creating rules.
• Exact Match. This gives you the most control over what’s included in the Page tag, but covers fewer variations, such as different sections in the same page as indicated by a hashtag symbol (#) at the end of the URL.
• Rule Builder. This helps you create a rule by giving you the option to apply <Ignore>, <Ignore after>, <Parameter>, or <Contains> statements to elements of the URL you provided for tagging. For an explanation of what these options are, see the URLs for Page taggingarticle.
• Custom URL. This allows you to create a rule using standard URL syntax. For more information, see the URLs for Page taggingarticle, which includes examples.

If standard URL syntax is insufficient, you can add multiple rules for tagging a Page. When a tagged Page has multiple rules, Pendo interprets them as a series of OR statements. A URL must match at least one of the rules. If the URL matches multiple rules on the Page tag, it only counts as one view.

Tip: Use parameters in your Page tagging rules. A parameter allows you to ignore specific values and to view what those values are in the Page tag data. For example, if you want to see what channels are most popular even though there are too many to tag, you can implement a parameter rule for channels. A parameter rule in your Page tag might look like appname.com/channel/*parameter*/. To learn more, see the Parameterized URLs section in URLs for page tagging.

Exclude rules

Exclude rules are optional, and are additional to include rules. Exclude rules filter out URLs so that the Page doesn't include any URLs that match the patterns defined by the rules. When tagging a Page in the Visual Design Studio, you have the following options for creating an Exclude Rule: 

• Rule Builder. This helps you create a rule by giving you the option to apply <Ignore>, <Ignore after>, <Parameter>, or <Contains> statements to elements of the URL you provided for tagging. For an explanation of what these options are, see URLs for Page tagging.
• Custom URL. This allows you to create a rule using standard URL syntax. For more information, see URLs for Page tagging, which includes examples.

If standard URL syntax is insufficient, you can add multiple exclude rules, which Pendo interprets as a series of OR statements. A URL that matches any of the exclude rules isn't included in the Page you create.

Validate Page rules

There are two ways to validate your rules:

• In the details of the Page, which you can find by locating and opening the Page in Product > Pages. Select Test Rule next to the rule or rules you created for that Page.
• In the Visual Design Studio, open different Pages in your application to see which URLs match which Pages in Pendo.

When testing URLs, include some that should match the rule and some that shouldn’t to ensure your Pages only match the URLs you intend them to match.

View tagged Pages

To view and edit tagged Features in Pendo's Visual Design Studio:

1. Navigate to Product > Pages > Tag Pages.
   
   
2. Enter the URL of the target page of your application into the text field.
3. Choose a tagging mode: Tag side-by-side or Tag in an overlay. For more information, see Tagging with the Visual Design Studio.
4. Select Launch Designer to open the Visual Design Studio.
5. Select the Pages tab, then select the Page you want to view or edit. This shows the name of the event, associated app, Product Area, rules, and the names of the users who created and last updated the tag.
6. To view recent metrics for this Page, select Metrics at the bottom of the modal. Select a Segment to view metrics for a specific group of users.
7. To edit the Page, select Edit Page in the bottom-right corner.
   
   
   
   
8. Optionally:
   • Edit the name of the Page.
   • Add a description for the Page, or update the description if one already exists. The description must be 280 characters or less.
   • Change the Product Area that the Page is assigned to.  
   • Edit, remove, and add rules as needed.
9. If you made changes, select Save Changes in the bottom-right corner.

Note: You can also view and edit tagged Pages in the Page's details within the Pendo UI, found by opening the Page from the list in Product > Pages. For more information on this option, see View and manage tagged Pages.

Additional resources