Wildcards

• Quick Reference
• Detailed Examples
  • Wildcard Example 1
  • Wildcard Example 2
  • Wildcard Example 3
  • Wildcard Example 4
  • Wildcard Example 5
  • Wildcard Example 6 - One to Avoid
  • Wildcard Example 7 - Another to Avoid
• Wildcards in Query Parameters
  • Wildcard Example 8 - Query Example
  • Wildcard Example 9 - Fixed Query Parameter

---

You can also record visits to similar URLs under one event name. Use * to indicate wildcards.

Quick Reference

Long Example #	Pattern	Notes
#1	/en/*/view	Basic demonstration of wildcards
#2	/*/view/contact	You can use one wildcard to match on more than one subsection of a URL
#3	/*/san-francisco/*/contact	You can use two or more wildcards
#4	/*/view/*	This matches all subpages of /*/view/, including the page /*/view itself
#5	/*/view/*/*	This matches all subpages of /*/view/, excluding the page /*/view/ itself
#6	*/view/*	This is actually reduced to “/view/*” (see the full explanation)
#7	/*/*/view	Two or more wildcards together do not work (see the full explanation)
#8	/*/?source=* or /*?source=*	This matches a URL that has any value for the “source” parameter
#9	/*/?source=fb	This matches a URL that has the query parameter source=fb. You don’t need a wildcard to match a URL with additional query parameters.

Detailed Examples

Let’s look at some detailed examples. Suppose your site has URLs that are similar to each other:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/contact
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/submit
• example.com/en/new-york/view
• example.com/en/new-york/view/contact
• example.com/en/new-york/view/submit
• example.com/es/barcelona/view
• example.com/es/barcelona/view/contact
• example.com/es/barcelona/view/submit
• example.com/es/madrid/view
• example.com/es/madrid/view/contact
• example.com/es/madrid/view/submit

From these URLs, here’s what these wildcard patterns would match:

Wildcard Example 1

Pattern: example.com/en/*/view

URLs that will trigger an event with this pattern:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/
• example.com/en/new-york/view/

This example demonstrates using one wildcard to match a URL that starts with “example.com/en/” and ends with “/view”.

Wildcard Example 2

Pattern: example.com/*/view/contact

URLs that will trigger an event with this pattern:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/contact
• example.com/en/new-york/view/contact
• example.com/es/barcelona/view/contact
• example.com/es/madrid/view/contact

This example demonstrates that a single wildcard can match on more than just one subsection of the URL. This example finds “any URL that ends in /view/contact”.

Wildcard Example 3

Pattern: example.com/*/san-francisco/*/contact

URLs that will trigger an event with this pattern:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/contact

This example demonstrates you can use two (or more) wildcards in a pattern.

Wildcard Example 4

Pattern: example.com/*/view/*

URLs that will trigger an event with this pattern:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/contact
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/submit
• example.com/en/new-york/view
• example.com/en/new-york/view/contact
• example.com/en/new-york/view/submit
• example.com/es/barcelona/view
• example.com/es/barcelona/view/contact
• example.com/es/barcelona/view/submit
• example.com/es/madrid/view
• example.com/es/madrid/view/contact
• example.com/es/madrid/view/submit

This example demonstrates using a wildcard at the end of a URL. The last / before the wildcard indicates to match on all pages that are sub-pages of “.../view/”. This pattern also matches on “.../view/” itself, since the wildcard matches to “nothing” in that case.

Wildcard Example 5

Pattern: example.com/*/view/*/*

URLs that will trigger an event with this pattern:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/contact
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/submit
• example.com/en/new-york/view/contact
• example.com/en/new-york/view/submit
• example.com/es/barcelona/view/contact
• example.com/es/barcelona/view/submit
• example.com/es/madrid/view/contact
• example.com/es/madrid/view/submit

This example contrasts with Example 4. The first */ after .../view/ means that this wildcard has to match on something (not just an empty string, like in Example 4), and the final * in the pattern looks for any deeper sub-pages of “.../view/”.

Wildcard Example 6 - One to Avoid

To contrast with Example 4, here’s a Pattern That Doesn’t Work As Expected: “*/view/*”

This pattern does not match on any of the sample URLs above, and here’s why. Though this pattern appears to look for “any URL that contains “/view/” in it, we start checking the URL starting from the first “/”. That means, the above pattern is actually reduced to “/view/*” (and we treat it as a Partial URL).

The bottom line is, if you’re leaving off the domain name, then please be mindful of including the initial “/” in your URLs.

Wildcard Example 7 - Another to Avoid

Another Pattern That Doesn’t Work As Expected: “/*/*/view”

Including two wildcards adjacent to each other will not work. Unfortunately, you cannot use wildcards to specify the depth in which to find the /view portion of the URL. Regular expressions will allow you to do this, and we are investigating how best to incorporate them.

Wildcards in Query Parameters

Suppose your site recognizes query parameters, additional information at the end of the URL that follows a “?” symbol:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?source=google&location=home
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?source=fb&location=away

Wildcard Example 8 - Query Example

Pattern:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?source=* or
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view?source=* (equivalent to the above)
• Likewise, /*/?source=* or
• /*?source=*

URLs that will trigger an event with this pattern:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?source=google
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?source=fb
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?source=fb&location=home
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?location=home&source=fb

This example demonstrates how to match for a URL that has any value for the “source” parameter. Also, notice you can match for a query parameter in the URL, even if it’s not the very first parameter listed (“?source=fb&location=home” vs. “?location=home&source=fb”).

Wildcard Example 9 - Fixed Query Parameter

Pattern:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?source=fb

URLs that will trigger an event with this pattern:

• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?source=fb
• example.com/en/san-francisco/view/?source=fb&location=home

This example demonstrates how to match for a URL that has the “source” parameter set to fb. Notice that the URL can have just one query parameter (?source=fb) or additional ones (?source=fb&location=home). In the case of matching for additional query parameters, you can consider the wildcard to be implied, and you should leave it out.