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."

Comments

Pardon my ignorance

[matr0x_x]

but can someone please explain why Google is so big on the "invite only" idea. Isn't Gmail technically "invite only" right now - and everyone and their dog has an account there.

What's the Deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, on top of its highly successful search and adsense, Google now wants to be the next DoubleClick. Well that's fine and I suppose that a lot of web monkeys want to have detailed statistics about their site. But, what is the deal with aggressive and forceful statistic collection? I'm speaking generally and not specifically about Google here.

I've noticed a marked increase in the use of Flash to track users. I've also noticed an annoying trend of scripts that request or post information to a tracker site every second. If you leave the page open it constantly hits the tracking site.

I find all this to be highly offensive. Web monkeys can slice and dice their logs in any way the like but stop trying to hijack my machine in persistent attempts to track my page viewing down to the second! When I come to your site, I want to view your site! I do not want your site causing my machine to load Google, DoubleClick, OLN or anyother pages. It's rude! It's dirty! It's like porn site popups! It makes me not want to come back to your site or your company. Ever!

Slashdot and Sourcefoge should know better

[CMBologna]

I've been lucky to jump early on the analytics bandwagon. However it got very apparent that they are having some performance issues and the report generation was/is still very slow. That said I still like it very much as it gave me some nice data on where my visitors live.
However the thing that goes on my nerves is that now everybody has it including big names like slashdot, sourceforge, ati, etc. I wonder, if the service is free, shouldn't at least peple that make a lot of money from ads (slashdot, sourceforge, ati...) donate a percentage to the analytics service so that it doesn't interrupt/cripple the service for the rest of users.
Analytics in the end helps sites target better their content, thus making more revenue both for the site and google (if they use GoogleAd's), but what if they don't use GoogleAd's? What if google doesn't beef up or scale better analytics with that revenue? That will just cripple the benefit that this service brings.

I find the (free) service very useful

[MarkWatson]

There are some rough edges (availability and best with Internet Explorer [yuck]) but I use their service to track my main web site, my blog, and three J2EE-based web portals. I never thought that I needed the kind of user location and navigation information that Analytics provides, but now that I have access to this information I would not like to lose it! Knowing statistically how people navigate around your site gives you a better idea of what people like than simple web log statistics. For example, I give away all sorts of hopefully useful stuff on my main site, but to be honest, I am most keenly interested in people visiting my consulting services page. Analytics lets me see what site navigation paths lead to my consulting page.

Open source versions

[afd8856]

I don't know what's special about analytics, but if there's anything noteworthy, I hope the open source alternatives, such as awstats or webalizer will pick the ideas and offer versions that will not depend on a third party such as google.

And hell, why doesn't google releases this thing (or at least a lite version) as open source for the webmasters?

Works via Javascript ... and Slashdot uses it ...

[xmas2003]

For those too lazy to RTFA, Google Analytics uses Javascript ... so obviousely you need that enabled for it to work correctly. So while most people/browsers have this enabled, it will undercount those that don't ... which incidentally includes most search engine robots.

BTW, Slashdot has been using this for a while ... if you have any doubt, do a view source and look about 20 lines down. Since they already have access to the raw log files (argueably better data), the tin-foil hat crowd shouldn't be too worried about this WRT /. ... but it is pretty interesting that web sites are (basically) allowing Google to collect (and potentially view) this data for them.

Achtung, babies.

[baudbarf]

Am I the only person who sees danger here? I've never heard it mentioned before, but Google gradually amassing the ability to track your every movement on the web.

Now, web servers have long been capable of logging every move that you make ON THEIR SERVER, but once you go to another server, they lose you. What Google is doing is (intentionally or not) bugging millions of web pages with Javascripts which are loaded from their own server.

For those who don't understand web technology, every time a resource is loaded from a server, your browser tells that server who you are (IP and any applicable cookies) and also what page sent you to fetch this resource (referer header). So, every time your browser loads an "Ads By Gooooooooogle" advertisement script, or a creative usage of the Google Maps API, or now a "Google Analytics" image/script; your browser checks in with Google's server and says "Hi! I'm browser #2j823 and I've just visited this URL."

As more Google resources are dumped onto web pages by enthusiastic webmasters, their "surveillance coverage" of the web grows, and, even now, it's considerable enough to give a good outline of each user's general habits and usual haunts.

So, Slashdot, is it a good thing that a private company is taking on an ability that would be terribly controversial for the government to take on; especially when the government is just a phone call away from requisitioning that data?

Googchelon

[dbzero]

Front company for the NSA?

Secret Relationship Between Analytics and AdSense?

[vtechpilot]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but this is as good a place as any to throw out the question. I put my site on Google Analytics right after it was post on /. in November. I have also been using AdSense on the site since August or So. Oddly enough, shortly after adding Analytics to the site, AdSense revenue started dropping. Revenues are now less than half of what they were before Analytics.

Anyone else seen that behavior or is my site just a statistical outlier?

Click stream not trivial?

[namespan]

Click stream analyisis for websites is not a trivial problem.

Um... why? What's different about "click stream analysis" than simply grabbing lists of requests from a given user out of the server logs?

Re:Adblock is your friend...

[slavemowgli]

Speak for yourself. Nobody's forcing you to block anything; in fact, the GP did not even say "OMG u h4v3 to block this now!!!111", he merely said "IF you want to block it, it's easy, as you just have to add the following filter to adblock". Whether people actually do that or not is up to them - not him, and not you either.

And as for "do you want to hurt the websites you visit", that's the same strawman that's used by those who're against any use of ad blocking whatsoever, too, but it's still a strawman. People's intention is not to hurt websites; it's to avoid getting tracked without their knowledge or consent, in ways that they cannot check or supervise even when they want to.

Besides, have you ever gone to the fridge to grab a can of soda or used the restroom while there was a commercial break on TV? If yes, then you should ask yourself the same thing - why do you hurt the channels you watch by not sitting there and taking notes about the products you're supposed to buy the next day?

Advertising is built on the idea that most people won't bother ignoring it, but that doesn't mean that there's something morally wrong with doing so. If someone says "hi, would you like a cookie?" and then, after I eat it, asks me to buy something or listen to him rant about religious or political matters or the like, I'm not obliged to do that just because he gave me a cookie - and if he gets pissy and said "but you took my cookie", I would just point it out to him that he chose to give it to me out of his own free will.

Advertising is the same. If you put up a website with advertising, don't expect people to feel obliged to look at it - and what's more, don't complain if they don't. If you absolutely want them to see it, don't let them in before sitting through it. Think that'll drive your visitors away? Tough luck, there's no constitutional right to having your business model work out.

And while most of the above was about advertising, the same goes for tracking and the like, too. Feel free to try, but don't tell me I'm under a moral obligation to let it happen - I'm not. And if you don't like me taking your free cookie without listening to you or signing your petition afterwards... don't offer free cookies.