Pages with the same layout are ideal for tracking with a wildcard; for example, product detail pages. Most product detail pages share the same layout; the only difference is the displayed product. Another example would be an article/blog post page. Articles like product pages share the same layout and can be tracked using a wildcard or regular expression.
When tracking with a wildcard or regular expression, a valid URL that uses the page layout you’d like to track is required. The URL captures a screenshot and aggregates results from pages that match the wildcard or regular expression pattern.
Setting up a Heatmap to track by wildcard or regular expression is straightforward.
The URL you use for the main report needs to match the wildcard or RegEx pattern. In step 4, you will configure pattern matching.
Let’s use a product details page as an example. A wildcard pattern lets you replace parts of the URL that vary by product with an asterisk.
Product Detail Page: http://www.example.com/products/some-product
Wildcard Pattern: http://www.example.com/products/*
Our system will default to taking the URL you entered and placing an * at the end of the line. You need to remove that * and place it in the appropriate location. In the above example, the some-product is the changing variable, so I removed some-product and replaced it with *.
The second field in the screenshot (in step 4) lets you enter the URL of other pages to see whether it matches the pattern. Green means yes, and red means no.
Create a Wildcard Heatmap – Step by Step
While this example will show you how to set up a wildcard Heatmap, please note that you will also follow the same steps for creating a Regular Expression (RegEx) Heatmap.
This example starts from the Heatmap configuration page. We assume you have chosen the correct method for creating the Heatmap—either the traditional single-Heatmap method or Page Camera.
