To better understand how URL targeting works, it is also good to understand what components form a URL:
Elements of a URL
Hotjar can only support the following characters
a-z, A-Z,0-9, -, ., _, /, and ~. Any other characters need to be percent-encoded.
Hotjar's page targeting rules for Funnels are:
- Simple match: This is the default match type and is used to target a page on your site, ignoring any query strings and fragments as well as protocol, http vs https, and the presence or not of 'www'.
- Exact match: Targets a specific URL, including the protocol, which can include a query string and fragment.
- Starts with: Target all pages that have a URL, including the protocol, which begins with the entered text.
- Ends with: Target all pages that have a URL that ends in the entered text.
- Contains: Target all pages which contain the entered text or used for Virtual Page Views (VPVs). VPVs are a JavaScript snippet that allows you to track a URL even if your visitors did not have that URL loaded in their browser or the URL doesn't change. This rule is case sensitive.
- Regular Expression (REGEX): A regular expression, regex or regexp for short, is a unique text string for describing a search pattern.
Watch Links in Funnels do not work properly with VPV and REGEX targeting
If you are using VPVs or REGEX for targeting certain steps in your Funnel, the Watch Videos button will not show Recordings for those steps in your Funnel report. This is because Hotjar doesn't have an option to filter your Recordings by Regex or VPVs.
Simple match
This is the default match type and is intended to be used to target a page on your site. The match will be correct if the URL path your visitor is on, matches the URL path you specify.
Query strings and fragments are ignored
If the live site loads with a query string, it will still be considered to match the Simple URL targeted.
Simple Match - http://www.x.com/pages/
| Result | Example URL | Why? |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/ | The domain (x.com) and page path (/pages) is a match |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/subpage | /subpage is not part of the page path criteria |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1 | The query string (?x=1) is ignored |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1&y=1 | The query string (?x=1&y=1) is ignored |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/PAGES | The Simple Match method is NOT case sensitive |
| MATCH | https://www.x.com/pages/ | The HTTPS protocol is ignored |
| MATCH | http://x.com/pages | The www. prefix to the domain is ignored |
| MATCH | https://x.com/pages/ | The HTTPS and www. prefix to the domain are ignored |
Exact match
The match will be correct if the URL path, query-string and fragment your visitor is on match EXACTLY the ones you specify.
Example:
Exact match - http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1
| Result | Example URL | Why? |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/ | The required query string (?x=1) is missing |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/subpage | The required query string (?x=1) is missing and the page path should not include /subpage |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1 | All URL components are an exact match |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1&y=1 | The URL has a non-matching query string (&y=1) at the end of it |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1#2 | The URL has a non-matching URL fragment (#2) at the end of it |
| NO MATCH | https://www.x.com/pages/?x=1 | The URL protocol (HTTPS) needs to be changed to HTTP to become an exact match. |
Starts with
The match will be correct if the URL your visitor is on, starts exactly as you specify it, including the protocol.
Starts with - http://www.x.com/pages/
| Result | Example URL |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/ |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/subpage |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1 |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1&y=1 |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1#2 |
| NO MATCH | https://www.x.com/pages/ |
Ends with
The match will be correct if the URL your visitor is on, ends exactly as you specify it.
Ends with - pages/
| Result | Example URL |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/ |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/subpage |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1 |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1&y=1 |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1#2 |
Contains
The match will be correct if the URL your visitor is on, includes the text you specified.
Contains - ?x=1
| Result | Example URL |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/ |
| NO MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/subpage |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1 |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1&y=1 |
| MATCH | http://www.x.com/pages/?x=1#2 |
Regular Expressions (REGEX)
The match will be correct if the REGEX you create includes the URL your user visits. More about REGEX can be found How to Use Regular Expressions for Page Targeting.