In Webtrends Optimize locations are used to define an area of the site, this could be a single page or a group of pages. The location is used when building or creating an experience but can also be used in conversion points.
FAQ's relating to locations can be found at the bottom of this article.
Accessing location manager
To access the location manager, click “Locations” 
from the drop-down menu.
Location manager screen overview
In this screen you can see all your current locations, how many projects they are used in as well as how many conversions are based of them. You can also see when they were created and last modified.
Creating a new location
Click on 'Create' in the top right hand side of the screen, this will open a right hand panel where you can define the location.
If you are looking for help on how to update a location you can find more information here.
This slide out will ask for information relating to the location itself and we will walk through what each requires below.
Be aware, by default WTO will use the core domain (site) originally setup when the account was created. This can be changed in the advanced settings, shown below, in the case you want to use another domain or a sub-domain.
Location name
This is the name we want to give to the location. If its a single page, maybe your homepage, we can just use 'Homepage'. If the location is several pages, lets say all your product pages, we might use 'All PDPs'.
Matching by URL/Regex
This is asking how we want to define the location - how will Webtrends Optimise understand and define which page is included in a location.
Matching type 'by URL' - this is the simplest version of creating a location and requires only a single URL, or multiple individual URL's.
E.g. this may be used when you want to run your experience across several landing pages. You can add several URL's here by using the 'Add additional URL' option.
Matching type 'by regular expression' - this option utilises the flexibility of regular expressions to group together multiple pages where the URL structure follows a similar pattern.
E.g. we might want to group all of our product pages together and all of the product page URL's follows this pattern, where the final part relates to a single product, www.mysite.co.uk/products/xxxxx. Using regular expressions we can define that any page where the URL matches this pattern, and has a unique ID at the end, should be classed as one page.
If your URL structures do not support using a regular expression you can utilise the 'match by data object' option in the advanced options shown below.
Regular expression to Match - this is the regular expression we will use to define the pages to include in the locations. You are able to add multiple regular expressions into a single location allowing complete control and flexibility.
URL checker - use this to enter the URL's you are hoping to including in the location based on the regular expression. You will see a thumbs up or down depending on whether the expression is accurate and matches.
Regular expressions are a commonly used language and there are lots of help articles available to assist you. For the most part very simple regular expressions will be required.
Editor details
This is simply asking, when using the visual editor, which page should the editor take you to when making your changes.
E.g. you may have specified to group several pages together. In this example the editor is unable to open all of those at once. Enter a single URL (from the grouped pages) so the editor can open a page for you to make those changes.
Please be aware that when making changes to a single page, which is part of a group of pages in your location, those changes will be reflected across all pages included in group.
E.g. if we want to change the colour of the add to basket button on all product pages we will define that change on a single product page (using this editor location) but that change will be reflected across every product page.
Advanced
Site
This is referring to the domain which is relevant to the site in which you want to create the location on. You can choose to create a new site from this screen or use an existing one.
Managing sites is done in a different screen, more details can be found on using site manager here.
New site - you can define a new site by entering the domain here.
Existing site - you can choose from a drop-down of your existing sites.
Matching by data object
This option allows you to utilise something that exists on the page to group your pages by. This is a common option used when they above options are not applicable.
E.g. if your URL structure does not allow you to use regular expressions, you could utilise a data point on the page to group pages. You may have something like 'pageType = product' and we can lean on this to create the location.
This requires extra configuration such as passing this information to the Webtrends Optimise data layer. More information on how to do this can be found here.
The options here allow you to use the data passed into the Webtrends Optimise data layer to base your location on. The data point name and value are defined in the prior setup and the rule is choosing from options such as 'contains, is/is not, does not contain' etc.
Parameters
This option allows us to specify whether we want to evaluate the URL as case-sensitive or non case-sensitive, we can also add a description for the location here.
The extra options relate to tracking visitors across multiple domains however it is rarely used and is not supported by a lot of browsers.
More information on how Webtrends Optimise uses cookies, as well as cookie inspection, can be found here.
Updating a location
Changing a location is simple and is done following the steps above however there are some things to consider. There are also ways to find which projects are linked to which locations and vice versa. This part of the guide walks you through doing both of these things.
Be aware, locations are assigned to projects, not tests or targets. So any update to the location will apply to all tests/targets in your Project. If you clone your test for example, the location update will apply to all of the clones too as they are in that same project.
Locations can be shared by projects. E.g. you could have a location called "homepage", and 10 projects all using that same location. Any update to the location will again apply to all projects that use it.
For more info on projects see this article.
How to find the location associated with a project
Finding the location associated with a project/experience is simple and can be done via the 'Experiences' screen.
Navigate to 'Experiences' and use the 'Overview' icon to see details of the experience.
Accessing this will show you both the location name and also the location itself.
You can find out all projects associated with a location by using the location manager.
Access location manager, select any location and scroll to the 'Usage summary' section and it will list all relevant projects.
Location FAQ's
Why did my live test location change when I only changed the Location of a cloned project?
Why did my live test location change when I only changed the Location of a cloned project?
What happened?
When you clone a project, all the tests within it still share the same project-level settings, including the Location.
So, if you change the Location in one test from a cloned project, it updates the Location across all other tests within that same project.
Why?
This happens because the Location is a setting of the Project, not of the individual tests.
Think of the Project as a folder, and the Location is a property attached to the whole folder, not each test file inside it.
More information on how projects work can be found here.
How to avoid it:
Use the “Clone into New Project” option instead of the basic “Clone Project”.
This creates a completely separate project with its own independent Location, so any changes you make won’t affect the original.
Why do I get the “Domain is incomplete” warning when I try to create a new Location?
Why do I get the “Domain is incomplete” warning when I try to create a new Location?
What it means:
You’ll see this warning if you enter a full URL like this into the Site field when creating a new Location.:
https://www.websitename.co.uk
Why it happens:
The platform expects just the domain name (without the protocol or www) in the Site field. The system automatically handles HTTPS and www internally.
How to fix it:
Instead of:
https://www.websitename.co.uk
Use:
websitename.co.uk
This will remove the warning and allow the Location to be saved successfully.
Why is my Location built using a URL not working?
Why is my Location built using a URL not working?
Problem:
You created a Location using a specific URL (e.g. https://websitename.co.uk/home) but visitors aren't being included in the expected tests.
Even when you manually visit the page in your browser, it looks like the URL is correct—but the test still doesn’t trigger.
What’s going wrong:
The issue likely comes from URL precision.
Webtrends Optimize does a strict exact match on the URL you provide. Even something as small as a missing trailing slash ( / ) at the end of your URL can cause the match to fail.
Example:
You entered this as your Location:
https://websitename.co.uk/home
But when a visitor lands on that page, the true URL from the browser may be:
https://websitename.co.uk/home/
This minor difference means the platform doesn’t recognize it as the same Location, and the test won’t run.
How to check:
Open the affected page in Chrome
Press
F12to open Developer ToolsGo to the Console tab
Type:
document.location.href
This will return the true URL as seen by the browser
How to fix it:
Add an additional URL entry to your Location configuration that includes the alternate format (e.g., with or without the trailing slash). This ensures both versions are matched.
Best practice:
Include both versions of the URL if you're unsure
Always double-check with
document.location.href