#GTMTips: GTM Container Snippet in the HEAD

(UPDATE 28 Sep 2016: The official recommendation has finally caught up with the times. Now the correct placement for the JavaScript methods of the container snippet is, indeed, in <head>.)

I want to address something I’ve been confused about from the very first day since I started using Google Tag Manager. Why on earth would an asynchronously loading JavaScript library be recommended to place in the beginning of <body>, when the logical place to start loading dependencies is as early as possible in the document load process? Well, the main reason for this is that the GTM library makes modifications to the document object model of the page in such a way that might cause conflicts when using Internet Explorer 7 or older.

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#GTMTips: Add Google Tag Manager to Your Blogger Blog

This is a very simple tip, but judging by the number of queries on the Product Forums, it should prove helpful.

Blogger is a free blogging service by Google. Like WordPress, they allow you to run hosted blogs on the blogger.com domain, and they also allow you to modify the HTML source. This, of course, means that you can add the Google Tag Manager code to the HTML template, if you wish (and why wouldn’t you!).

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The Container Snippet: GTM Secrets Revealed

First of all, I’m sorry for the wacky title. Sometimes I just want to amuse myself. Nevertheless, this post is about the Google Tag Manager container snippet. There’s nothing secretive about it, but I’m betting many people have no clue what the snippet really does. That’s the revelatory part.

If you’ve never wondered what the snippet does, then shame on you! Remember, you own your page template. It’s yours. Any code that you write there is your responsibility. You wouldn’t let a complete stranger come to your house and paint your walls without permission, would you? So why copy-paste some code that you have no idea what it does? Because Google told you to?

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