Google Analytics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Google Analytics (GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. Its main highlight is that a webmaster can optimize their AdWords advertisement and marketing campaigns through the use of GA's analysis of where the visitors came from, how long they stayed on the website, and their geographical position.

A screenshot of the main data analysis window

Google's service was modeled upon Urchin Software Corporation's analytics system, Urchin on Demand (Google acquired Urchin Software Corp. in April 2005). Google still sells the standalone installable Urchin software through a network of value-added resellers.

The Google-branded version was rolled-out in November 2005 to anyone who wished to sign up. However due to very high demand for the service, new sign-ups were suspended only a few days later. As capacity was added to the system, Google began using a lottery-type invitation-code model. Prior to August 16, 2006 Google was sending out batches of invitation codes as server availability permitted, after that the service is generally available.

Google has been working to improve system performance, and reports now generally update in less than 1 hour. All users can officially add up to 10 site profiles, and "pre-free" customers can add up to 50. Each profile generally corresponds to one URL.

GA's approach is to show basic dashboard-type data for the casual user, and more in-depth data further into the report set. There are currently over 80 distinct reports, each customizable to some degree. GA also offers three dashboard views of data, Executive, Marketer, and Webmaster.

[edit] Technology

Google Analytics uses a small JavaScript on each page the user wishes to track. This JavaScript loads files from the Google webserver and then sets variables with the user's account number. The GA reports interface will check for the presence of this script on a tracked site's homepage, and warn should it not be available.

[edit] Problems

Many ad filtering programs and extensions (such as adblock) block the Urchin JavaScript. This prevents some traffic and users from being tracked, and leads to holes in the statistical data. Also, privacy networks like tor will mask the users actual location and prevent accurate geographical data.