Group similar pages together

A shop can have thousands of product pages. With one heatmap per address, each would have only a handful of visits. Varly therefore groups pages that share a layout. You get one heatmap for all product pages, with enough clicks to see a pattern. Groups are used in Heatmaps, Click impact, the page filter in Recordings, the Page of an idea, and for tests.

In the app, a group is shown with a plain name and its path, with … for the part that changes. For example, Product pages (/products/…) means all your product pages together.

How Varly groups pages automatically

Varly looks at each part of the address (the bit between two slashes). When a part looks like something that changes from page to page, Varly treats all those pages as one:

• Long names with dashes. A part of more than 10 characters with a dash in it, such as blue-running-shoe-42, counts as "any name". So /products/blue-running-shoe-42 and /products/green-rain-jacket count as one: Product pages (/products/…).
• Numbers. A part with only numbers, such as /order/12345, counts as "any number". All those pages count as one: Pages under /order/ (/order/…).
• Unique codes. A long code like 3f2b8c1e-… (a UUID) is handled the same way.

Varly recognizes common folder names, so you see names like Product pages, Category pages, Blog posts, Search results and Account pages. Other folders show as Pages under /folder/. Single pages get a readable name, such as About us for /pages/about-us.

Everything after ? or # in an address is ignored, and so is a slash at the end. /shoes/ and /shoes are the same page.

Test a URL

1. Go to Settings → Group similar pages.
2. Type an address or path from your site in Test a URL. You can paste a full address.
3. Under it, Counted as: shows how Varly counts this page, for example Product pages with /products/… next to it.

The tester uses the same rules as the snippet on your site, including changes you have not saved yet. So you can try a rule before you save it.

Add your own groups

This is an advanced setting: most sites never need it. Use your own groups when the automatic grouping is not enough, for example to put all category pages together.

1. Go to Settings → Group similar pages.
2. Under Your own groups, click + Add a group.
3. In the first field (Pattern), enter a pattern for the path, for example ^/collections/[^/]+$. The pattern is a regular expression, a short notation for "addresses that look like this". Your developer can help you write one.
4. In the second field (Group name), enter a short path that describes the group, for example /collections/all-categories. Varly then shows these pages as All categories (/collections/all-categories).
5. Check a few addresses in Test a URL.
6. Click Save.

Your own groups go before the automatic rules. If an address matches several of your groups, the first one in the list wins. Varly replaces the part of the path that matches the pattern with the group name. So start the pattern with ^ and end it with $ if you want to replace the whole path. A pattern that is not valid shows "Not a valid pattern" and is skipped. You can add up to 30 groups. Click Remove to delete one.

Keep pages separate

Sometimes the automatic grouping goes too far. /terms-and-conditions and /privacy-policy are both long names with dashes in the main folder, so both would count as one page: Pages in the main folder. To stop that:

1. Go to Settings → Group similar pages.
2. In Keep these pages separate, enter one path per line, for example /terms-and-conditions.
3. To keep everything below a path separate, end it with *. For example /blog/* gives each blog post its own heatmap.
4. Click Save.

Pages in this list are never grouped. This list goes before your own groups and before the automatic rules.

When changes take effect

Changes apply to new visits. Data that was already collected keeps its old group. So after a change, a heatmap for the new group starts empty and fills up as visits come in. The old group stays visible in the page list as long as it has visits in the chosen period.

Common problems

• Two different pages share one heatmap: add one of them to Keep these pages separate.
• Every product has its own heatmap: the product names are short. Add your own group with the pattern ^/products/[^/]+$ and a group name such as /products/all-products. From then on, all product pages count as one.
• My change doesn't show in the heatmap: only new visits use the new group. Wait for new data, or look at the old group for older data.
• I can't change anything here: only owners and editors can change these settings. Others see "You have read-only access."