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Google Analytics


Ivan's picture
Submitted by Ivan on Wed, 2005-11-16 12:48. Intermediate | Webdev

Google Analytics screenshot

Wether you are running a serious e-commerce site for living or you're a junkie for your blog you will find the new free service from Google a delight to use.

I have been using Statcounter for several months, but they only support sites with less than 9K page loads a day. I've been looking at Mint to replace Statcounter, but it doesn't have the graphical presentation I prefer. There are many open source solutions that one can install, but I didn't feel like spending time learning how to install and configure them. Luckily for us Google's new service outperforms them all in features and ease of use and installation.

Analytics has so many features that the average user will never use them all. If you're not into statistics, you'd have to rely on the comprehensive help to make sense of all the things that are available for you.

Google Analytics screenshot

One of the most exciting part of Analytics, which is usually only available on professional services that cost hundreds of dollars is the conversion analysis. You can set-up so called goals for your website. For example if you run an online shop you may want to add the page that concludes the purchase as a goal for your website. Analytics will be able to track which activities bring you the most sales. Is it a certain keyword in Google? Is it a link from another site? Whatever the trigger — you may want to put more emphasis on developing that area of your operation.

Google Analytics screenshot

What's in it for Google? Analytics is integrated with AdWords, Google's popular online advertising programme. Analytics helps webmasters fine tune their AdWords advertising campaigns, therefore increasing their returns on AdWords spending. Analytics gives more value for AdWords. For the rest of us not using Adwords, I guess Google expects us to return love for their free service.

Google Analytics screenshot

It's Beta so you may expect changes in policies and operation. After you sign up you need to be patient. It took me almost 24 hours for the first results to appear after inserting the code into the pages.

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j truitt's picture

I'm in

Submitted by j truitt on Wed, 2005-11-16 15:50.

That looks nice.
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Jammo's picture

Are Google getting too powerful?

Submitted by Jammo on Wed, 2005-11-16 16:39.

I worship google's experiments and products like this (which looks awesome) but... Is anyone else worried that one day Google might have too much data on us?

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j truitt's picture

Yes

Submitted by j truitt on Wed, 2005-11-16 17:14.

Yes. I won't use gmail for that reason.

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ItalianMike's picture

me too

Submitted by ItalianMike on Wed, 2005-11-16 16:48.

I recently installed shortstat (which is similar to mint)

One question though, when it prompts you to check status did Google detect the source code right away? It doesn't seem to detect it for some reason or another. It's there when I view my source code. However I only installed it on my header include file.

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Infinite Style

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Ivan's picture

be patient

Submitted by Ivan on Wed, 2005-11-16 17:03.

it will work, just takes time...

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afterglow's picture

I had signed up for it when

Submitted by afterglow on Wed, 2005-11-16 18:50.

I had signed up for it when I saw it on Slashdot.Looks nice up but have yet to upload the code snippets. Wonder if there is much of a performance penalty for running a lot of stats packages? I'd like to keep my AW Stats around for a month or two before I get comfortable with Google's version
afterglow.ie - Icons, interfaces, illustration

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Ivan's picture

All I can say that it's

Submitted by Ivan on Wed, 2005-11-16 20:26.

All I can say that it's really much faster than Statcounter was. Google uses a javascript. Statcounter uses a transparent gif in the best case. I don't think you should worry about performance if the server serving the js or gif is fast enough.

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Juice10's picture

Measuremap

Submitted by Juice10 on Wed, 2005-11-16 22:54.

Is it any better than MeasureMap?

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Sprae's picture

Apples to Oranges

Submitted by Sprae on Thu, 2005-11-17 03:30.

After seeing Jeff's preso on MeasureMap, is more AJAX treatment to web stats than this. But I do think Google has more effective tools, especially if it remains free. Measure Map may have a trial period, but might be a fee-based service.

"Everything is Relative"

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ItalianMike's picture

This thing is unbelievably slow

Submitted by ItalianMike on Mon, 2005-11-21 15:02.

I added it, when you originally posted this entry. It took over 24 hours for google to see I inserted their code on my website. I've been waiting for the first report ever since.

I'm a little let down.

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Ivan's picture

true

Submitted by Ivan on Tue, 2005-11-22 16:43.

They have tens of thousands of new members. It probably hit them as a surprise to have so many people intrested. It will speed up with time.

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Ivan's picture

letter from Google

Submitted by Ivan on Thu, 2005-11-24 15:15.

Hello Google Analytics User,

This is a quick update to address some issues you may be seeing in your Google Analytics account and what we're doing to respond.

First, due to extremely high demand, we've temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. This allows us to focus on our primary objective--to provide a great user experience for our existing users.

Next, here is current information on the most common questions we're receiving:

1. The 'Check Status' button is being reworked to check for properly installed tracking code. This should be fixed by the end of November.

2. The '+Add Profile' link has been temporarily removed until we increase capacity. We'll alert all current users when the feature is restored.

3. While we increase capacity, you may see longer than normal delays in data showing up in your reports. All data continues to be collected and no data has been lost.

For additional help with your Google Analytics account, we encourage you to browse or search our online Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/analytics?hl=en.

Thanks for your patience as we improve Google Analytics and add resources to ensure a high-quality service.

Sincerely,

The Google Analytics Team

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