feat(analytics): measure the location layer, and stop calling it direct

The location pages were only half-tracked. Umami counts a pageview for
each of the ~3,900 URLs automatically, but nothing else: components/
places contained no track() call, and place_viewed was not even a
declared event name.

The part that mattered was worse than a gap. getNavigationSource mapped
a same-origin referrer to a funnel source and had no case for /schools/,
so every school view arriving through the location layer fell through to
'direct' — the bucket you read as "typed the URL, no referrer". W2's
whole purpose is funnelling search traffic onto school pages, so the one
measurement that says whether it worked was reporting the wrong answer,
and reporting it confidently. Verified live against staging: expected
"place", received "direct".

/schools/ is checked before /school/. They differ by one letter and mean
different things — the location layer versus a single school — and a
prefix test in the wrong order silently merges them.

place_viewed carries kind, slug, phase and school_count. kind is the
reason it exists: whether to keep investing in these pages turns on
which sort earns engagement, and a pageview cannot say, because all four
families share the /schools/ prefix and only the registry knows which is
which. It is a client component because PlaceView is a server component;
one line in PlaceView covers all four families, since they all render
through it.

Both E2E journeys were verified failing against staging first — one
because place_viewed does not exist there, the other on the exact
"place" vs "direct" mismatch.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015mWQnpye9F299NVRCCSRvj

e2e/tests/journeys.spec.ts

@@ -2132,6 +2132,66 @@ test('the rankings page still orders by score, not name', async ({ page }) => {
   expect(scores).toEqual([...scores].sort((a: number, b: number) => b - a));
 });
 
+/*
+ * Analytics on the location layer.
+ *
+ * Umami counts a pageview for every one of these URLs already. What it cannot
+ * say is which *kind* of location page earns engagement, because all four
+ * families share the /schools/ prefix — and that is the question that decides
+ * whether to keep investing in them.
+ */
+
+/** Capture Umami events, with the real script blocked so it cannot clobber
+ *  the stub. Must be called before the first navigation. */
+async function captureEvents(page: Page) {
+  const events: Array<{ name: string; data: Record<string, unknown> }> = [];
+  await page.route('**/analytics.schoolcompare.co.uk/**', (route) => route.abort());
+  await page.exposeFunction('__capture',
+    (name: string, data: Record<string, unknown>) => { events.push({ name, data }); });
+  await page.addInitScript(() => {
+    (window as unknown as { umami: unknown }).umami = {
+      track: (name: string, data: unknown) =>
+        (window as unknown as { __capture: (n: string, d: unknown) => void })
+          .__capture(name, data),
+    };
+  });
+  return events;
+}
+
+test('a location page reports which kind of place it is', async ({ page }) => {
+  const events = await captureEvents(page);
+  const place = await firstPlaceOfKind(page, 'authority');
+
+  await page.goto(`/schools/authority/${place.slug}`);
+  await expect.poll(() => events.find((e) => e.name === 'place_viewed'),
+    { timeout: 10_000 }).toBeTruthy();
+
+  const event = events.find((e) => e.name === 'place_viewed')!;
+  expect(event.data.kind).toBe('authority');
+  expect(event.data.slug).toBe(place.slug);
+  expect(event.data.phase).toBe('all');
+});
+
+test('a school reached from a location page is attributed to it, not to direct', async ({ page }) => {
+  /*
+   * The defect this was written for. getNavigationSource had no case for
+   * /schools/, so every school view that came through the location layer was
+   * filed as 'direct' — the bucket you read as "typed the URL". The one
+   * measurement that says whether ~3,900 SEO pages work was reporting the
+   * wrong answer, confidently.
+   */
+  const events = await captureEvents(page);
+  const place = await firstPlaceOfKind(page, 'town');
+
+  await page.goto(`/schools/${place.slug}`);
+  await page.locator('a[href^="/school/"]').first().click();
+  await page.waitForURL(/\/school\//);
+
+  await expect.poll(() => events.find((e) => e.name === 'school_viewed'),
+    { timeout: 10_000 }).toBeTruthy();
+  expect(events.find((e) => e.name === 'school_viewed')!.data.from).toBe('place');
+});
+
 /*
  * School autosuggest (spec 2026-08-26).
  */

nextjs-app/__tests__/components/TrackPlaceView.test.tsx

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+import { render } from '@testing-library/react';
+import { TrackPlaceView } from '@/components/places/TrackPlaceView';
+
+const trackMock = jest.fn();
+jest.mock('@/lib/analytics', () => ({
+  track: (...args: unknown[]) => trackMock(...args),
+  getNavigationSource: () => 'search',
+}));
+
+describe('TrackPlaceView', () => {
+  beforeEach(() => trackMock.mockClear());
+
+  it('reports which kind of location page was viewed', () => {
+    /*
+     * `kind` is the reason this event exists. Whether to keep investing in the
+     * location layer turns on which *sort* of page earns engagement — towns,
+     * authorities or postcode districts — and a bare pageview cannot say,
+     * because all four families share the /schools/ prefix.
+     */
+    render(<TrackPlaceView kind="authority" slug="kent" count={412} />);
+    expect(trackMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith('place_viewed', {
+      kind: 'authority', slug: 'kent', phase: 'all',
+      school_count: 412, from: 'search',
+    });
+  });
+
+  it('names the phase when the page is a phase variant', () => {
+    render(<TrackPlaceView kind="town" slug="brentwood" count={29} phase="primary" />);
+    expect(trackMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith('place_viewed',
+      expect.objectContaining({ phase: 'primary' }));
+  });
+
+  it('fires once, not once per render', () => {
+    const { rerender } = render(
+      <TrackPlaceView kind="town" slug="brentwood" count={29} />);
+    rerender(<TrackPlaceView kind="town" slug="brentwood" count={29} />);
+    expect(trackMock).toHaveBeenCalledTimes(1);
+  });
+
+  it('renders nothing', () => {
+    const { container } = render(
+      <TrackPlaceView kind="town" slug="brentwood" count={29} />);
+    expect(container).toBeEmptyDOMElement();
+  });
+});

nextjs-app/__tests__/components/filterBarScoping.test.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+import fs from 'fs';
+import path from 'path';
+
+/**
+ * The hero search and the results filter bar are the same component in two
+ * costumes. `.filterBar` is the card — background, border, shadow, padding —
+ * and `.heroMode` strips all of it so the search sits directly on the hero
+ * panel.
+ *
+ * Both selectors have specificity (0,1,0), so **source order decides**, and
+ * `.heroMode` only wins because it is declared immediately after. Any later
+ * bare `.filterBar` rule — which in practice means one inside a media query —
+ * silently wins instead, and the hero grows a card's padding back.
+ *
+ * That is exactly what happened: `@media (max-width: 768px) { .filterBar {
+ * padding: 0.875rem } }` re-added 14px in hero mode, indenting the search box,
+ * the hint and the location link 14px past the headline above them and costing
+ * the search field 28px of width on a 390px screen. The two rules directly
+ * below it in the same block were correctly written as
+ * `.filterBar:not(.heroMode)`; this one was missed, and nothing caught it
+ * because the result is a plausible-looking layout rather than a broken one.
+ */
+
+const CSS = path.join(__dirname, '..', '..', 'components', 'FilterBar.module.css');
+
+/** Properties `.heroMode` resets. A later bare `.filterBar` rule setting any
+ *  of these puts the card back on the hero. */
+const RESET_BY_HERO_MODE = [
+  'background', 'border', 'border-radius', 'box-shadow', 'padding',
+];
+
+/**
+ * Comments are stripped before anything is parsed.
+ *
+ * A `{` or `}` inside a comment would otherwise desynchronise the brace walk
+ * below and the rule regex alike, and the selector text captured for each rule
+ * would carry the preceding comment along with it.
+ */
+function withoutComments(css: string): string {
+  return css.replace(/\/\*[\s\S]*?\*\//g, '');
+}
+
+/**
+ * The individual selectors in a rule's prelude.
+ *
+ * Split on commas, because a selector list is a list: `.filterBar, .other { }`
+ * applies to `.filterBar` just as surely as `.filterBar { }` does, and an
+ * earlier version of this guard compared the whole prelude against the literal
+ * string '.filterBar' — so writing the regression as a comma list, or across
+ * two lines, would have walked straight past it.
+ */
+function selectorsOf(prelude: string): string[] {
+  return prelude.split(',').map((sel) => sel.trim().replace(/\s+/g, ' '))
+    .filter(Boolean);
+}
+
+function mediaQueryBodies(css: string): string[] {
+  const bodies: string[] = [];
+  const re = /@media[^{]*\{/g;
+  let m: RegExpExecArray | null;
+  while ((m = re.exec(css)) !== null) {
+    // Walk braces from the opening one to find this at-rule's whole body.
+    let depth = 1;
+    let i = m.index + m[0].length;
+    const start = i;
+    while (i < css.length && depth > 0) {
+      if (css[i] === '{') depth++;
+      else if (css[i] === '}') depth--;
+      i++;
+    }
+    bodies.push(css.slice(start, i - 1));
+  }
+  return bodies;
+}
+
+describe('FilterBar hero-mode scoping', () => {
+  const css = withoutComments(fs.readFileSync(CSS, 'utf8'));
+
+  it('confirms heroMode still resets the card, which is what makes this matter', () => {
+    const hero = css.match(/\.heroMode\s*\{([^}]*)\}/);
+    expect(hero).not.toBeNull();
+    expect(hero![1]).toMatch(/padding:\s*0/);
+  });
+
+  it('never re-applies card styling to the hero from inside a media query', () => {
+    const offenders: string[] = [];
+
+    for (const body of mediaQueryBodies(css)) {
+      for (const rule of body.matchAll(/([^{}]+)\{([^{}]*)\}/g)) {
+        // Only a *bare* .filterBar is dangerous, and it is dangerous wherever
+        // it appears in a selector list. Scoped variants
+        // (`.filterBar:not(.heroMode)`) and descendants are fine.
+        const selectors = selectorsOf(rule[1]);
+        if (!selectors.includes('.filterBar')) continue;
+
+        for (const prop of RESET_BY_HERO_MODE) {
+          if (new RegExp(`(^|[;\\s])${prop}\\s*:`).test(rule[2])) {
+            offenders.push(`${rule[1].trim()} sets ${prop}`);
+          }
+        }
+      }
+    }
+
+    // Fix by scoping the rule as `.filterBar:not(.heroMode)`, the way the
+    // neighbouring rules in the same block already are.
+    expect(offenders).toEqual([]);
+  });
+});

nextjs-app/__tests__/lib/analytics.test.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+import { getNavigationSource } from '@/lib/analytics';
+
+/** jsdom's document.referrer is read-only; redefining it is the way in. */
+function referrer(url: string) {
+  Object.defineProperty(document, 'referrer', { value: url, configurable: true });
+}
+
+const ORIGIN = 'http://localhost';
+
+describe('getNavigationSource', () => {
+  afterEach(() => referrer(''));
+
+  it('attributes a visit from a location page to the place layer', () => {
+    /*
+     * The one this was added for.
+     *
+     * W2 published ~3,900 location pages whose entire purpose is to funnel
+     * search traffic onto school pages. Before this case existed they fell
+     * through to 'direct' — so the location layer's contribution was not
+     * merely missing from the funnel, it was being counted in the bucket you
+     * read as "typed the URL". The measurement that decides whether W2 worked
+     * was confidently reporting the wrong answer.
+     */
+    referrer(`${ORIGIN}/schools/barnet`);
+    expect(getNavigationSource()).toBe('place');
+  });
+
+  it.each([
+    ['/schools/authority/kent', 'authority'],
+    ['/schools/near/sw11', 'outcode'],
+    ['/schools/brentwood/primary', 'phase variant'],
+  ])('covers %s (%s)', (path) => {
+    referrer(`${ORIGIN}${path}`);
+    expect(getNavigationSource()).toBe('place');
+  });
+
+  it('still calls a school page "detail", one character away', () => {
+    // /school/ and /schools/ differ by one letter and mean different things.
+    // A prefix test written in the wrong order silently merges them.
+    referrer(`${ORIGIN}/school/100010-brecknock-primary-school`);
+    expect(getNavigationSource()).toBe('detail');
+  });
+
+  it.each([
+    ['/', 'search'],
+    ['/rankings', 'rankings'],
+    ['/compare?urns=1,2', 'compare'],
+  ])('leaves %s attributed as %s', (path, expected) => {
+    referrer(`${ORIGIN}${path}`);
+    expect(getNavigationSource()).toBe(expected);
+  });
+
+  it('treats an external referrer as direct', () => {
+    // Umami records the real referrer on the pageview; this field is only
+    // about internal navigation.
+    referrer('https://www.google.com/search?q=schools+in+barnet');
+    expect(getNavigationSource()).toBe('direct');
+  });
+
+  it('treats no referrer as direct', () => {
+    referrer('');
+    expect(getNavigationSource()).toBe('direct');
+  });
+});

nextjs-app/components/FilterBar.module.css

@@ -413,7 +413,17 @@
 /* ── Narrow ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────── */
 
 @media (max-width: 768px) {
-  .filterBar {
+  /*
+   * Scoped, like the two rules below it.
+   *
+   * The results filter bar is a card — background, border, shadow — and needs
+   * inner padding. The hero's search is not a card: .heroMode zeroes the
+   * padding, border and background so the search sits directly on the panel.
+   * Unscoped, this rule put 14px back, which indented the search box, the hint
+   * and the location link 14px past the headline they sit under, and cost the
+   * search field 28px of width on a 390px screen.
+   */
+  .filterBar:not(.heroMode) {
     padding: 0.875rem;
   }
 
@@ -457,6 +467,14 @@
     align-items: flex-start;
   }
 
+  /* Optical alignment: the button's own 6px of padding is what makes its
+     label start further right than the hint above it, even once both boxes
+     share a left edge. Pulling the padding back off lines the text up while
+     keeping the tap target. */
+  .heroMode .nearMeBtn {
+    margin-left: -0.375rem;
+  }
+
   .geoError {
     text-align: left;
   }

nextjs-app/components/places/PlaceView.tsx

@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ import { placeUrl, authoritySlug } from '@/lib/places';
 import type { School } from '@/lib/types';
 import { schoolUrl } from '@/lib/utils';
 import { absoluteUrl } from '@/lib/site';
+import { TrackPlaceView } from './TrackPlaceView';
 import styles from './PlaceView.module.css';
 
 interface Props {
@@ -165,6 +166,11 @@ export function PlaceView({ detail, phase, englandAverage, neighbours }: Props)
 
   return (
     <div className={styles.container}>
+      {/* One line, and all four place families are measured, because they all
+          render through this component. */}
+      <TrackPlaceView kind={place.kind} slug={place.slug}
+        count={place.count} phase={phase} />
+
       <script
         type="application/ld+json"
         dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: JSON.stringify(jsonLd) }}

nextjs-app/components/places/TrackPlaceView.tsx

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+'use client';
+
+/**
+ * Fires `place_viewed` once per location page.
+ *
+ * A separate client component because PlaceView is a server component and
+ * cannot call into the browser. It renders nothing — its whole job is the
+ * effect, which keeps the page itself server-rendered.
+ *
+ * Umami already counts a pageview for every one of these URLs, so this is not
+ * about traffic. It is about `kind`: whether to keep investing in the location
+ * layer turns on which *sort* of page earns engagement — towns, authorities,
+ * London localities or postcode districts — and a pageview cannot say, because
+ * all four families share the /schools/ prefix and only the registry knows
+ * which is which.
+ */
+
+import { useEffect } from 'react';
+import { track, getNavigationSource } from '@/lib/analytics';
+
+interface Props {
+  kind: string;
+  slug: string;
+  count: number;
+  phase?: 'primary' | 'secondary';
+}
+
+export function TrackPlaceView({ kind, slug, count, phase }: Props) {
+  useEffect(() => {
+    track('place_viewed', {
+      kind,
+      slug,
+      // "all" rather than omitting it, so the unphased page is a value in the
+      // same field rather than a gap that has to be interpreted.
+      phase: phase ?? 'all',
+      school_count: count,
+      // Internal navigation only. An arrival from Google reads as 'direct'
+      // here; Umami's own pageview referrer is where external attribution
+      // lives, and these pages exist to be arrived at externally.
+      from: getNavigationSource(),
+    });
+  // Once per place, not once per render.
+  // eslint-disable-next-line react-hooks/exhaustive-deps
+  }, [kind, slug, phase]);
+
+  return null;
+}

nextjs-app/lib/analytics.ts

@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ export type EventName =
   | 'empty_results'
   // Engagement
   | 'school_viewed'
+  | 'place_viewed'
   | 'section_nav_used'
   | 'chart_metric_changed'
   | 'metric_compared_in_rankings'
@@ -56,7 +57,10 @@ export function track(name: EventName, data?: Payload): void {
  * Categorise where the user navigated from, for funnel attribution
  * (mostly used on school_viewed). Only checks same-origin referrers.
  */
-export function getNavigationSource(): 'search' | 'rankings' | 'compare' | 'detail' | 'direct' {
+export type NavigationSource =
+  'search' | 'rankings' | 'compare' | 'detail' | 'place' | 'direct';
+
+export function getNavigationSource(): NavigationSource {
   if (typeof window === 'undefined' || !document.referrer) return 'direct';
   try {
     const ref = new URL(document.referrer);
@@ -65,6 +69,11 @@ export function getNavigationSource(): 'search' | 'rankings' | 'compare' | 'deta
     if (p === '/' || p === '') return 'search';
     if (p.startsWith('/rankings')) return 'rankings';
     if (p.startsWith('/compare')) return 'compare';
+    // `/schools/` before `/school/`: they differ by one letter and mean
+    // different things — the location layer versus a single school. Checked
+    // first so the narrower-looking prefix cannot shadow it if either string
+    // is ever edited.
+    if (p.startsWith('/schools/')) return 'place';
     if (p.startsWith('/school/')) return 'detail';
     return 'direct';
   } catch {