Google Launches Web Traffic Analysis Service

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.

Comments

How visitors found this

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot! See, you don't need to be Google to do this.

interesting acronym...

[0110011001110101]

GAS.... as in more hot-air from the friendly neighborhood Googledot.

Urchin

[pubjames]

Did they do this based on their acquisition of Urchin? Are Urchin staff now working on this instead? Does this mean the death of Urchin software?

for the slashdotted crew

[0110011001110101]

Google has officially launched Analytics, a robust new web analysis system that provides site owners with traffic metrics and massive amounts of useful marketing data. Based on technology originally developed by a Californian company called Urchin that Google acquired in March, Analytics integrates with Google's popular AdWords system, and will vastly improve the quality and quantity of data provided to existing AdWords users. Those of you that don't use AdWords can still use Analytics by adding a simple javascript snippet to your web site.

Analytics features an elegant user interface that leverages modern web technologies like Flash and DHTML. Although it seems a little rough around the edges (the Flash components don't display correctly in Firefox on my Linux system) the service is moderately impressive. It can export data in several formats, including XML and CSV. With Analytics, you can determine where your visitors are coming from, which links on your site are getting the most hits, how long the visitors spend on various pages of your site, and more:

Learn how visitors interact with your website and identify the navigational bottlenecks that keep them from completing your conversion goals. Find out how profitable your keywords are across search engines and campaigns. Pinpoint where your best customers come from and which markets are most profitable to you. Google Analytics gives you this and more through easy-to-understand visually enhanced reports.

It is still relatively difficult to get a good feel for the usefulness of the system at this point, but with over 80 pre-built reports, support for interactive report construction, and tracking for countless attributes, the amount of data it provides is downright prodigious. In addition to providing critical marketing data, it also tracks browser features so that web developers can make informed design decisions. Analytics will tell you the screen resolution and connection speed of your visitors, as well as whether or not their browsers support Flash and Java. Flash-rendered graphs are provided with each data collection so that you can get a quick visual overview.

Although it may not be especially useful compared to some of the critical features, the geographical map overlay is probably one of the coolest features. Analytics will generate a Flash-based map of the world that shows you which regions your traffic comes from. You can click individual regions to get additional statistics, and you can use Flash's built-in zoom feature to get a closer look at specific locations.

The site overlay mechanism is one of the other particularly interesting features. It will superimpose click statistics on top of your actual page so that you can (hypothetically) see what people are clicking just by browsing your site. During my experiments with Analytics, I had some trouble getting the site overlay feature to work correctly. Clicking the individual links in the site overlay caused the Analytics start page to load in the iframe rather than the actual content.

Analytics fits perfectly into Google's advertising platform and business model. Despite the bugs (which may be specific to Linux or Firefox) Google's newest service looks powerful and comprehensive. The value of the features and the benefits of AdWords integration will probably be more than enough to convince site owners to use AdWords rather than a competing service.

Big Brother-esque (again)

[Oscaro]

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...

Re:Big Brother-esque (again)

[oever]

Not only that. It's worse. The snippet of code is javascript.

This means that the added code has the ability to change the look of the page completely. If at any time Google decided that all web pages should have the word Microsoft replaced by Google, they could do this by adding an onload function to the javascript code that is added to all web pages using this service.

Re:Big Brother-esque (again)

[Anonymous Coward]

If at any time Google decided that all web pages should have the word Microsoft replaced by Google

So you can read: *Google* is a monopoly that uses evil techniques to dominate die market.

Re:Big Brother-esque (again)

[Crayon Kid]

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.

Re:Big Brother-esque (again)

[Pieroxy]

Well, when I do service my car, the garage has a full access to everything in the car. They could put a tracker and I wouldn't notice it in a century.

It is a question of trust. If you decide to use their service, you will need them to have access to your pages (through JavaScript). If you don't trust them, just don't subscribe.

My DSL Provider has a lot of information about myself as well, and I trust them with it. If my trust vanished, I'd switch (well, in France you have actually a lot of choice).

My bank ... well, I think you get the point.

Re:Big Brother-esque (again)

[digidave]

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.

Re:Big Brother-esque (again)

[op12]

It is a question of trust.

Not only a question of trust. It's also a matter of Google's reputation. Much like in the recent backlash at Sony, people are not going to sit idly when a company does something stupid. Google has much more to lose by pulling a stunt like that than the gain it would provide. Plus, you could always just rip the snippet out of your page if it does something undesirable.

Re:Big Brother-esque (again)

[alta]

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.

Re:Big Brother-esque (again)

[lo0ol]

No "sane webmaster should willfully inject foreign JavaScript on his website"? I'm guessing you've never ran ads on your website before. That's the norm. Nearly every ad network has their code in JavaScript. Heck, chances are if someone is using Google Analytics they're ALREADY using Google AdSense on their site- who's to say that Google hasn't done the same with AdSense? People haven't said anything about the evils of AdSense yet really.

My point is that it is about trust, as a previous poster said. A heck of a lot of companies do business in the exact same way. If you don't trust Google with your site, then don't use it (and get a license of Urchin for yourself- that is extremely solid software; I'd say the best in the business).

Re:Big Brother-esque (again)

[NanoServ]

By your argument, it would seem unwise to install and use Firefox. It's a foreign piece of code (even though you can monitor its source code if you want, but who has the time for that?). It has the power to snoop through personal files on your computer and report the information back to mozilla.org. Since it has a huge user base and now an automatic and seamless update system, some malicious behavior could get installed into the program and we'd all be screwed without even knowing it.

But the thing is, that doesn't happen. If Google attempted this, the behavior would quickly be discovered (because, although *you* aren't reviewing the .js file constantly, *people* are reviewing the .js file constantly) and Google would get some seriously bad PR. There's no incentive for them to risk their image like that.

Oddest Terms of Service

[mir]

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.

Is this the future of google?

[Anonymous Coward]

This looks like google is relying less and less on their PageRank algorithm and more and more on data that they spy from users.

It seems to me that the page rank is too easilly manipulated so they are resorting to the alexia toolbar method.

Already they are pusing their toolbar hard (even for firefox where is has limited appeal). This says even more to me that they are using the stats from the toolbar and now these stats to monitor user browsing behavior, which it will use to better their search results.

Use this to improve search

[G4from128k]

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.

Google starting to slip?

[0110011001110101]

Is Google starting to slip? I hit the "Sign up >>" button within Google Analytics, recieved a Javascript error "Syntax Error" and have been waiting on a response page for 3 minutes now....

This just isn't the quality I'd expect from their team of PhD and mental masters...

Google if you're listening.. I have pages of code that throw syntax errors... scoop me up quick! I'm everything you're looking for and more!

Re:warning to Slashdot

[Kosmatos]

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.... :)

No different than Google ads.

[brunes69]

If you have a Google ad on your page you are already giving them all this information.

AdWords attractiveness rising...

[Jugalator]

Right after Microsoft leaked that memo where they're going to try enter the online ad market due to problems with their business strategies, Google pulls a rabbit out their hat to raise their AdWords attractiveness to new heights... Establishing their foothold further, before MS have even got their steam up. I can already hear things crashing in Ballmer's office. :-p

Graceful Slashdotting

[wordisms]

Google Analytics

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.

Death knell for Web Side Story

[Slashdoc Beta]

This is the end of Web Side Story and similar analytics tools as we know it. Obviously webmasters will flock to Google's free (and probably superior) tools. Google simply takes the $400m market and redistributes the money back to publishers. Amazing.

Microsoft

[pubjames]

Coming to you from a couple of years in the future...

Today Bill Gates released a statement "Yes, Google is currently number one in traffic analysis, but at Microsoft we think their service is really basic and we've got some amazing web analytics software in development that will blow Google's out of the water. It's coming out soon... Yes, I know I said we were going to crush Google in search a while ago and we didn't but we're definately going to crush them in Traffic Analysis. Really. Please believe me. Hey, don't walk away I'm still talking! Why doesn't anyone fear me any more..?"

And The Best Part Of It Is...

[RobotRunAmok]

It's a Totally Free Service!!

(You just have to pay Google if you DON'T want them to track every little thing about you.)

From the TOS

[carguy84]

Personal Use Only The Google Services are made available for your personal, non-commercial use only. You may not use the Google Services to sell a product or service, or to increase traffic to your Web site for commercial reasons, such as advertising sales. You may not take the results from a Google search and reformat and display them, or mirror the Google home page or results pages on your Web site. You may not "meta-search" Google. If you want to make commercial use of the Google Services, you must enter into an agreement with Google to do so in advance. Please contact us for more information.

Re:Mod me down.

[Ohreally_factor]

You think you're an idiot? I was hoping this would help my morning commute!

Interesting tidbit in the TOS ...

[xmas2003]

Section 6 of the Terms of Service has some interesting wording that may cause some sites to think twice about deploying this.

You hereby grant to Google and its wholly owned subsidiaries a limited license to use Your trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, domain names and other distinctive brand features ("Brand Features") in presentations, marketing materials, customer lists, and financial reports. Further, Unless You notify Google otherwise in writing, Google and its wholly owned subsidiaries retain the right to identify You as a valued customer and optionally issue a press release that, at a minimum, discloses You have licensed the Product and that the Product is Your preferred web analytics package.

Re:Interesting tidbit in the TOS ...

[md27]

All this says is they can say you use their service. I don't think you really need to worry since they won't proclaim you as a customer unless you're massive, like Microsoft or Yahoo or something they're not gonna care enough to talk about you.

Re:*adds google-analytics.com to his hostperm.1*

[Cruithne]

*adds the following line to his hostperm.1 file*

I know this is horribly wrong, but apparently i'm dyslexic... i read "hostperm" as "hotsperm".

Re:No encryption here?

[slug359]

Incorrect, the URL of the sign in box is: https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginBox?se rvice=analytics&nui= ...