Tagging Overview
SiteCatalyst JavaScript Tagging is the process of adding JavaScript code to your web site pages to collect visitor data. You implement it with two elements:
- JavaScript page code: A block of SiteCatalyst-specific JavaScript code that goes directly in the body section of each HTML page.
- JavaScript library file: A collection of SiteCatalyst-specific methods and global SiteCatalyst variables stored in a separate file which is called from the JavaScript page code.
As each web page is requested in a browser, your web server returns the HTML page with the embedded JavaScript page code. The JavaScript page code sets the values for analytic data that you are collecting and calls SiteCatalyst-specific functions and global variables in the JavaScript library file.
The SiteCatalyst JavaScript Tagging code builds an image request for a 1x1 pixel image, also called a web beacon, that concatenates a query string of name/value pairs of analytics data to send to the Adobe Data Collection Layer.
The web beacon image, which is just a dummy request to pass the data, is returned to your web page, but is not displayed.
The web analytics data sent from your site to the Adobe Data Center is collected and stored in data repositories called report suites, which are the basis of all SiteCatalyst reports.