Picture of Jason Call me Ishmael Jason Stitt. Happy web developers are all alike; unhappy creative ones are always coming up with something different. And it is a truth universally acknowledged that, once in possession of a high-level scripting language, they must be in want of a fortune. More or less.

Deep link into Google Analytics with dynamic date ranges

When you visit Google Analytics through the "front door," it can take several clicks to get to a specific report. First the account name, then the profile name, then the report, each with a loading time. Then you have to set the date range, which defaults to a month starting yesterday (never today). If you bookmark a report, you'll forever get the same date range as before.

Here's another way. I wrote a tool that creates a bookmarklet for you that takes you straight to a specific report with a date range based on the current date. For how to find your profile ID, scroll down.

Enter your profile ID below. The nickname is optional and will only show up in the name of the bookmarklet. Pick a report and time range, then drag the automatically created link onto your bookmark bar or bookmark sidebar.

How to find your profile ID: two ways

Your profile ID is *not* the same as the account ID that you use in your tracking code. Each account can have multiple profiles.

There are a couple of ways to find your profile ID.

First is to go into your Google Analytics account, look at the table of profiles for an account, and click the Edit link on the right-hand side. This will bring you to a screen that shows your profile ID:

Screenshot of part of Google Analytics profile edit page

The second way is to go all the way into a report, then look at the URL in your browser's location bar. The ID will be there in the id URL argument, like this:

Screenshot of part of Google Analytics URL in location bar

Known Issues with the generator

  • In some browsers, bookmarklets open in the current tab even if "open in a new tab" is selected.
  • Site Overlay can be accessed only from within Google Analytics, not from a bookmarklet.

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Comments

Avatar picture for Adam I LOVE IT! Thank you for this. I was going crazy each day clicking on their stupid date thing. Very smart.

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