Tagging and viewing Pages

Last Updated: June 08, 2023 17:08

Pages are managed in Product > Pages, which you can find in the left-side navigation.

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 tag track clicks 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 the URLs for Page tagging article.

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 tag (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 prod) and the wildcard helps you avoid tagging everything again in each environment.

Tag Pages

There are three ways to tag Pages in Pendo:

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

Suggested Pages

In Pendo, navigate to Product > Pages to see 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 the Suggested Pages article.

Untagged URLs

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

The timeframe for the list of untagged URLs depends on the specific subscription or application used in the filter at the top of the page, if you choose one. This choice changes the start time for the Untagged URLs table because these can have different event rates.

For example, All Apps is likely to have a higher event rate than specific apps you choose. To account for this, the timeframe for the Untagged URLs table when All Apps is selected starts from 168 hours in the past up to the present moment. When a specific app is selected, the timeframe starts from 168 hours before the time of the last recorded event for that application. The maximum number of events queried for the Untagged URLs table is 2.5 million.

To tag a URL in the Untagged URLs list:

Select Tag URL next to the untagged URL you want to tag.
Create a descriptive name so that others will know what you're referring to.
Add the Page to a Product Area using the dropdown menu.
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.
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 Rule section.

With the Visual Design Studio

You can tag a URL within the application itself with the Visual Design Studio.

In Pendo, navigate to Product > Pages and then:

In the top-right corner, select Manage Pages In-App.
Enter the URL of the target page of your application into the Web App text field.
Select Launch Designer. This loads the Visual Design Studio over the page in your application.
In the Page tab of the Visual Design Studio, select Tag Page.
Select Create New Page at the top of the Visual Design Studio.
Enter a descriptive name that’s in line with your company naming convention so that others will know what you're referring to.
Assign a Product Area to the Page using the dropdown menu.
Create "include rules". Choose 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.
[Optional] Create "exclude rules". Choose from Rule Builder or Custom URL to create rules that exclude URLs from the Page you're creating. For guidance, see Exclude Rules in this article.
[Optional] Add more rules if required 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 Rule section.
Select Save to add the Page to your Pages list.
Close the Visual Design Studio using the Exit button in the top-right of the page you're on.

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.

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 Tagging article.
Custom URL. This allows you to create a rule using standard URL syntax. For more information, see the URLs for Page Tagging article, 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 the URLs for Page Tagging article.
Custom URL. This allows you to create a rule using standard URL syntax. For more information, see the URLs for Page Tagging article, 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. SelectTest 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 tagged pages, navigate to Product > Pages. The Page list provides an overview of your tagged Pages in a table view. In this list, you can the following information about these Pages depending on the columns you choose for the table.

Name. The Page name. This can be edited in the Page details when you select the Page name.
Rules. The rules behind the Page tag.
Time Per Day. The average time per day (in minutes) that Visitors spent on the page.
Created Time. The date and time that the Page was originally tagged.
Created By. The Pendo user who originally tagged the Page.
App. The application that the Page is assigned to.
Product Area. The Product Area that the Page is assigned to or “No Product Area” if none was assigned.
Last Updated Time. The date and time the Page rules were last updated. Any modification to the Page rules revises the last updated time.
Last Updated By. The Pendo user that last updated the Page.
Number of Visitors. The number of unique Visitors that have visited the Page within the segment and date range specified at the top of the page.
Number of Accounts. The number of unique Accounts that have visited the Page within the segment and date range specified at the top of the page. For example, if two unique Visitors from a single unique Account visit the Page, the total number of Accounts would be one.
Number of Page Views. The total number of views of the Page from all Visitors within the segment and date range specified at the top of the page.
Core Event. If the page has been selected as a Core Event, the label ‘Core’ will display here. To learn more about Core Events, see ‘Set up Core Events’.

There are also four filters at the top of the page. These filters modify the list of Pages in the table view:

Filter	Description
Segment	The default is Everyone. Use the dropdown to select either a segment or select + Create New Segment at the bottom of the menu.
Date range	Use the dropdown to choose from predefined values, or choose a Custom Range for a specific time period.
Accounts	Use the dropdown to choose to view all your Pages regardless of account, or choose to view Pages by account.
Apps	Use the dropdown to choose to view all your Pages regardless of application, or choose to view Pages by application.

To customize columns, select the Manage Columns icon in the top-right corner of the list. In the window that opens, you can add, remove, and move columns in the table.

Tip: Add the Rule column to your lists of Pages to see what rules are behind the tags without having to open the details of each Page in the list.

Edit tagged Pages

There are two ways to edit existing Pages in Pendo.

In the Page details, found by opening the page from the list in Product > Pages.
By choosing a Page from the list in the Visual Design Studio when it launches.

In the Page details

Navigate to Product > Pages.
Find and open the Page you want to edit.
Change the name, Product Area, application, and rules, as appropriate.

In the Visual Design Studio

Navigate to Product > Pages > Manage Pages In-app.
Enter the URL of the target page of your application into the text field.
Select Launch Designer. This loads the Visual Design Studio over the page in your application.
In the Pages tab, select the Page you want to edit and then Edit Page in the bottom-right corner.
[Optional] Edit the name of the Page.
[Optional] Edit, remove, and add rules as required.
Select Save Changes in the bottom-right corner.

Delete a tagged Page

Warning: We don't recommend that you remove a Page, which might have guides associated with it or segments using the Page analytics. We recommend starting small and adding more pages as needed.

To remove a tagged Page, hover over the row of the Page you'd like to delete and select the trash icon at the end of the row.

Download a CSV file of Pages

To download a comma-separated values (CSV) file of the data in your table of Pages, navigate to Product > Pages, and select the Download icon in the top-right corner of the list, next to the Manage Columns icon. This automatically downloads a CSV file of your Pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should URLs from excluded domains/server hosts appear in the Untagged URLs section?

Yes. Even if a particular server host/domain is part of the Exclude List, untagged URLs from that environment still appear in the Untagged URLs section. This is correct behavior because Pendo is still collecting data from those environments. For more information, see Listing 101: Exclude and Include Listing.