Google Analytics
So Google have yet another free tool out; Google Analytics, a tool to analyse your web site traffic. (I presume that this is why Google bought Urchin last March.)
The idea is pretty simple; you embed a little bit of javascript in all your web pages which includes a unique ID number for your site, and then you can sign in to Google Analytics (yet another use for your Google account name!) and see lots of interesting stuff about your site including:-
- Keyword referrers (especially Google Adwords if you have them, unsurprisingly)
- New and returning visitors
- Geographical distribution of your visitors, with nice maps
- Referrers
- Trend reporting to compare any of your data sets from one arbitrary period to another arbitrary period.
- Data overlays – see stats for your pages overlaid right on to those pages so that you can get data in context just by browsing your own site.
It looks like a really polished set of reports and data manipulation tools. And it's free. If I had a site with no stats reporting on it right now, I'd be tempted to give this a go. But of course, if you're swayed by the "Google has all my data!" argument, then this is not so much the last straw as a giant great tree trunk across the camel's back.
John Dale
14 Nov 2005 13:50
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Tags: Google Tech
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This is a nice move by Google. They will now know a lot more about what goes on with their Adwords/Adsense now that they can track once users reach destination websites…clever.
14 Nov 2005, 15:19
naz
Has anyone read any good debates about this "who-holds-my-information" debate? I believe it's not me personally anybody like google is interested in, but me as part of a large group of people where predicting a trend could mean profits (or improved customer service. Haha).
14 Nov 2005, 17:26
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