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Google Re-Opens Analytics Service as Invite-Only
taboguilla writes "As of January 11, after freezing the Google Analytics new user subscriptions shortly after it first started, Google's snazzy web site hit counter is adding new users on an invitation-only basis. If you would like an invitation, you can submit your email address to on the Google Analytics home page and wait until they decide you are worthy."
Add :-)
http://www.google-analytics.com/*
to your blocking rules, and all is well.
it fails to count most traffic for no apparent reason.
it requires javascript turned on, in the visitor's browser. That skips from 5% to 30% of visitors (depending on the nature of your website - ie, homepage of links versus windoze wares site).
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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I got mine the first time around. It looks pretty sweet but I haven't gotten to deep into it. It gives some pretty nice metrics on browser type, country, resolution, well everything urchin did I suppose.
And everything comes across in executive friendly flash charts...
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
I'm seeing my AdSense revenue increase after Analytics, and I've no reason to believe that the two things might be related at all. As before, I still see clicks worth really less, as well as those worth really more -- it's the number of clicks that has gone up, but the price per click is more or less the same as before Analytics.
... but calling Google Analytics a glorified hit counter is seriously misleading, and overlooks one of its main functions: it allows the advertiser to link ad performance to conversion rate. If a particular ad generates 20,000 clicks it may appear to be more effective than one that generates only 1000 clicks. But if the ad that generates 20,000 clicks only generates 100 conversions (orders) and the ad that generates 1000 clicks leads to 200 conversions, the second ad is obviously more valuable to the advertiser. That's the kind of metric a "hit counter" can't give you, but Google Analytics (and other SEM products) can.
Some firms that provide these types of services are listed here: http://www.sempo.org/home
rooooar
Urchin, the company Google bought and renamed to Google Analytics, isn't necessarily used strictly for advertising purposes. Website optimization is greatly helped by analytics. I can look at the statistics to see my users are bypassing the FAQ page and heading straight to my contact page to ask questions already in the FAQ. I can then develop a strategy for page hierarchy to hopefully guide the users to the FAQ before contacting my company.
Google bought out Urchin. This is their replacement for Urchin.
Essentially it does what Urchin does, statistical analysis of traffic and visitors, broken down into all sorts of categories. How many people from Madrid, Montreal, New York, etc. How many people using WinXP, Linux, Firefox, Safari, etc. How many pages people load per visit. What the returns on your AdWords ads are (how many people coming from there are doing anything meaningful with the site). What pages people are visiting. How many are new visitors and how many are returning.
So, all that sort of stuff. The differences between Urchin and GA is that GA is way easier to set up. Urchin involved installing and configuring the software on your server, inserting code into web pages, and then TRYING to get Urchin to parse the Apache logs (I've had a great deal of trouble with that last part). With Google Analytics, you simply put the code on your site and that's it, google handles everything else.
Another difference is that Urchin supported HTML graphs and SVG. GA uses flash. While this is somewhat of a good thing (Not very many people have SVG capable browsers or plugins. Firefox 1.0.x crashed when the Adobe SVG plugin was installed), now that I'm using Firefox 1.5, I sort of wish that it was still SVG.
Google Analytics is doing some kind of fucking magic with city-tracking too. It shows my traffic to a site I'm developing as coming from "Pointe-Claire", the small city of 20,000 on the island of Montreal (Right above New York) where I live. How they figured this out, I have no clue. My IP's DNS identifies me as being in Toronto, 500 kilometers away from where I am. I wish I knew how they narrowed it down to Pointe-Claire considering that Pointe-Claire is just one tiny city in the middle of a cluster of dozens of other cities on the same small island.
Does Google have access to the Bell Sympatico DSL customer data? Do they know where the routers are and are placing me by the closest router to me (Does Bell even HAVE any routers in Pointe-Claire when Pointe-Claire is essentially part of Montreal)? This is a bit scary how they figured that out.
I take it you've never tried FlashBlock? It's a fairly popular extension which keeps Flash objects from running (or even loading) until they're clicked on.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
yeah, magic.
This is a bit scary how they figured that out.must be that conspiracy everyone is talking about
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
And when they see spam coming out of it they can trace it all back to one account and ban the whole tree.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?