Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Launches Web Traffic Analysis Service

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the walking-the-fine-line-between-free-and-advertising dept.

segphault writes to pass along that Ars Technica has an interesting article about the recently released Google Analytics. Analytics is Google's new traffic analysis service that helps you to know everything from "how your visitors found you [to] how they interact with your site." Analytics is also built to integrate with AdWords if you are already utilizing that service.

17 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Big Brother-esque (again) by Oscaro · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok, so the service works by adding a snippet of code into your web-pages. Then google registers when someone arrives on that page, where he came from, and lots of other data. So google watches everything, it knows what kind of people visits your site and thus knows a lot both about the site and about the visitors.

    I know google has always been concerned about "legitimate" use of their data, but this is somehow frightening...

    1. Re:Big Brother-esque (again) by Crayon+Kid · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's extra-ugly in this case, since you're practically begging for an XSS security hole. Yeah, I know, it's Google we're talking about here, the ones with the motto "Do no evil". Right, that makes me trust them completely (rolls eyes).

      Executing someone else's JavaScript on your website means begging for trouble. JavaScript can install handlers to watch everything the visitor is doing, can read, create and modify cookies, can nose through that window's or tab's visited page history. Let's not talk about truly evil stuff such as inspecting content on the pages, overlaying links and buttons or injecting content.

      I'm sorry, no matter how much of a white in shining armor Google is, not sane webmaster should willfully inject foreign JavaScript on his website.

      PS: and before anybody replies that you can download the urchin script and see what it does, let me ask if you're willing to monitor it constantly.

      --
      i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
    2. Re:Big Brother-esque (again) by digidave · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, the potential to do evil is there, but all the best web traffic analysis programs operate in a similar way. For one thing, if you're selling advertising on your web site very few advertisers will take your web logs seriously since they're not at all independent and can be faked easily. For another, web logs for a popular web site are difficult to manage. Before switching from Apache's logs to Red Sheriff (works with Javascript like Google Analytics) I had to deal with about 1GB/day of logs. So what happens when I want to build a year over year chart? Hmmm... 730 GB of logs is a bit hard to work with, especially in 2001 with no 500 GB hard drives, so I had to do monthly reports for each year then paste the results into a spreadsheet to build charts. That took me many times longer than if I could have just generated a report from all the logs.

      Big brother and all, this is still the best way for a lot of people to manage their web traffic logging. Before selecting a company to work with, read their privacy policy.

      --
      The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
    3. Re:Big Brother-esque (again) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
      quote: Executing someone else's JavaScript on your website means begging for trouble. JavaScript can install handlers to watch everything the visitor is doing, can read, create and modify cookies, can nose through that window's or tab's visited page history. Let's not talk about truly evil stuff such as inspecting content on the pages, overlaying links and buttons or injecting content.

      You sure about that? I thought that javascript from another host isn't trusted and because of such won't be able to modify objects on the including page. Things like cookie modification is only allowed within the domain so unless google can spoof domains they'll only modify google.com cookies.

      Your concerns are valid but it's not possible to do something truly malicious.

    4. Re:Big Brother-esque (again) by alta · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Here's an idea... If you don't like to take your chances with such a shady company like google, then don't sign up.

      But believe you me, I'm going to sign up the MOMENT the site isn't slashdotted.

      --
      Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
  2. Oddest Terms of Service by mir · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the Terms of Service: The Google Services are made available for your personal, non-commercial use only.. Doesn't this reduce slightly the usefulness, or at least the potential audience, of the service?

    I am sure that's a mistake, but that prevents me from using the service for anything useful right now. Or even from testing it.

    --
    Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em. (Terry Pratchett)
  3. c'mon by Douglas+Simmons · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Registrars especially have pushed gimmicky "features" on domain buyers that people could otherwise get with a phonecall to their ISP or typing apt-get install webalizer. As far as tracking the way people "interact" on your site, without a google ad on every page or some script I don't see how they can track user behavior on the site (IE which paths through the site are most popular) beyond timing the first and last load of a page with an ad on it. OTOH most of these potential customers or users of this feature don't have my skills. It just raises the whole issue of whether or not google's still a strong buy at 393/share.

  4. Use this to improve search by G4from128k · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If Google can tell how people react to a site, then it could use the data to affect pagerank. Sites that people bail from would lose pagerank and sites that people stay in and explore would gain page rank. Of course, Google would need some scheme for filtering out scam data where an SEO tries to make their site look interesting or make a competitor site look uninteresting by faking the behavior of visitors.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  5. Re:warning to Slashdot by Kosmatos · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't be ridiculous... Being the first site to post a story is not what Slashdot is about. Its about the comments posted on the story by the users. Great stuff like the "In Soviet Russia" jokes, the "5. Profit!" responses, the Open Source fanatics with their twisted mentality, the Microsoft-haters with their ridiculous love for Linux, the Apple-bashers who don't know what they are talking about.... :)

    --
    I'm your huckleberry
  6. Schnikeys we slashdotted google by 0110011001110101 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    This is from google after I timed out trying to sign-up:

    Currently Undergoing Maintenance

    Google Analytics reporting is currently undergoing maintenance and will be available shortly. Your site traffic is being logged and you will be able to see the data after system maintenance has concluded.

    --
    Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
    1. Re:Schnikeys we slashdotted google by mmkkbb · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, it's been like that for an hour. I'm thinking I'll just stick with SiteMeter.

      --
      -mkb
  7. Re:Site down already? by OldeTimeGeek · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Knowing a language other than English is mandatory? When was that?

    Guess I missed the email...

  8. Re:Death knell for Web Side Story by ostiguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    WSSI (Web side story) is currently down $2 to 15.99.

    ostiguy

  9. No access to base domain by SeanDuggan · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I know it's not cool or "133t" to admit such things, but my homepage is a subdirectory of a larger domain. Oddly enough, they let me register users.adelphia.net with the service, but they won't let me register users.adelphia.net/~user.name/, where my site actually is. Since their code isn't on the base page, they don't register the code I have on subdirectories.

    Huh... and I'm mildly curious as to whether anyone else can register the URL of users.adelphia.net.

    --
    This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
  10. Re:Have anyone read EULA for this tool? by Fryed · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My first guess upon looking at that snippet of code is that it is used to determine what search string brought users to that page. One of the things a web browser usually sends to a web server when requesting a page is the page that referred it. My guess is, the code you are looking at is part of a section of code that will figure out what search string brought the user to this page, if the referrer is a major search engine (ie, google, yahoo, msn, aol).

    The second string (q,p,q,query), is probably the variable in the referrer url that contains the search string that was used to send users to this page.

    Nothing evil, just some javascript magic so you can figure out how users are finding your webpage, which I imagine is quite useful information to a webmaster.

  11. Re:for the slashdotted crew by heho · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The flash based map is great, however with the launch of Google Local out of Beta and Google Maps, one would have to wonder why Google isn't using their own API's to show the data instea of using a flash based program.

  12. Another Language Mandatory Nowadays? by ghotiman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Many people get along just fine knowing only English, or only their own language for that matter. What other language do you think is mandatory nowadays? It depends where you live, and in many places there is no need to know another language. Why should someone living in Kansas bother to learn a language they will never use?