WebProNews - google analytics

Google Integrates AdSense For Feeds, FeedBurner, Analytics

Doug Caverly — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:27:54 +0000

The desire to integrate products is strong at Google; it’s not hard to imagine that the company would eventually like to offer one great, big search/video/email/advertising ball. And today, it took a tiny step along that path by rolling together some analytics products.

A post on the AdSense for Feeds blog announced, “If you use either AdSense for feeds or Google FeedBurner to track item clicks and also use Google Analytics, as of today, you will automatically start to see your feed item click analytics show up in Google Analytics with some additional information added to help you understand how distributing your feed with FeedBurner leads to traffic on your site.”

The post then continued, “Specifically, we will help you classify your links by tagging the Source as ‘feedburner,’ the Medium as the channel in which we sent out your feed such as ‘feed’ or ‘email,’ and the Content as the actual endpoint application in which the user viewed your feed content such as ‘Google Reader’ or ‘Yahoo! Mail.’”

More distribution endpoint labels are on the way, too.

Hopefully this update will help people earn a little extra money heading into the holidays. At the least, it may simplify FeedBurner and AdSense for Feeds users’ lives a little, which would also represent a nice treat this time of year.

Related Articles:

> Google Launches Analytics For Mobile Apps

> Correcting Your Web Analytics Mistakes

> FeedBurner/Google Alum Goes To Twitter

Google Launches Analytics for Mobile Apps

Chris Crum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:29:43 +0000

Google has launched Google Analytics for Mobile Apps. The reports that are available as a result of last week's expansion of mobile reporting features are now available for mobile apps as well.

There are 2 categories of user interaction that you can track, which are pageviews and events. Developers can determine when their apps should trigger pageview requests, since they don't contain HTML pages. Google Analytics aggregates the data in the Content reports, displaying number of visits, session length, and bounce rates.

"Developers can also track visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews using Event Tracking," says Meredith Papp of the Google mobile ads team. "These user actions can include views of embedded videos, button clicks, downloads and more. App developers can then use this data to understand which features are most popular and inform decisions about which features should be promoted or prioritized for further development."

Papp points to the software development kit and technical documentation for Analytics Tracking for Mobile Apps. The SDK can be downloaded and used on iPhone, iPod Touch and Android application platforms.

Related Articles:

> Google Analytics Gets a Bunch of New Features

> Correcting Your Web Analytics Mistakes

> Google Adds Heavily Requested Features to Analytics API

Correcting Your Web Analytics Mistakes

Chris Crum — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:18:00 +0000

WebProNews had something of a Q&A session with a couple of web analytics experts about what businesses can do to improve their implementation. We spoke with Brian Clifton, author of the book Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics, and E-Nor President Feras Alhlou, who Google itself has even had as a guest author on the Official Google Analytics Blog.

Do you struggle to get the most out of your web analytics efforts? Discuss here.

WebProNews: Why do you think so many organizations struggle to go beyond the basic metrics like visitor counts and pageviews?

Brian Clifton: Simply put, its a lack of resources i.e. staff and expertise. All organisations recognise the importance of measurement, but there is a dearth of expertise of knowing what to do next. Remember web analytics is still a nascent industry around 10 years old - similar to search engine marketing. But unlike SEM, web analytics is maturing at a slower pace - so there is less expertise out there to hire or recruit.

The result is that for many a business owner and marketer, web analytics is simply considered a "hit counter". That is, keeping track of past activity. However savvy organisations who are investing in this area, are exploiting web analytics as a way of looking forward i.e. optimising the user experience and planning future marketing efforts.

WebProNews: How can they become motivated to go further?

Brian Clifton: Free is a good motivator and the use of free products such as Google Analytics and Yahoo Analytics has gone a long way in this regard. Money that was once required to collect data can now be used in analysing and understanding the reports and therefore instigating website change i.e. improvement.

Following the obvious benefit of using a free system, sit down with a consultant and perform an analysis on what benefits are achievable. For example, often the result of website changes can be dramatic for the bottom line. One travel client was able to increase online holiday bookings four fold just by optimising their checkout system which consisted of 7 pages. That's a dramatic change that generated millions of additional revenue. However, to get started ask the question, if our conversion rate was to increase by 1 percent how much extra revenue (or sales leads) would that bring in? Use that number as your first year target and investment cost. From year two onwards, that additional revenue becomes pure profit and you can move on to the next optimisation project.

WebProNews: What is the most common mistake you see organizations making with regards to web analytics implementation?

Brian Clifton: Not configuring goals. Defining goals i.e. pageviews or actions that are more valuable to you than others, is the single most important configuration step you can do. A goal can be many things, both e-commerce and non-transactional such as downloading a catalogue.pdf, completing a subscription/registration form, viewing the special offers page, providing feedback, adding a blog comment, or even clicking on a mailto link. Where possible, these should also be monetized.

WebProNews: How can this mistake be corrected?

Feras Alhlou: Fundamentally all businesses establish short and long term goals for business success. The same planning process needs to be applied to the organization's website. Why does the website exist, what does the organization expect to achieve with the website, what are the website goals? These questions, while core business questions, are often overlooked in planning for the website. The days of only having an online presence are over, website business planning has to be integrated into overall business planning. Education is how to correct this mistake. Education of the value of establishing website goals showing the bottom line investment results. Or even start with some baby steps. For example, and for lead generation type websites, set up a goal for number of whitepaper downloads or number of "contact us" form submissions, and show this data to those in charge of lead generation, get that internal conversation started.

WebProNews: Can you give an example or two of how an organization can use analytical data to plan for new campaigns?

Feras Alhlou: This is a very good question Chris! A lot of times this question is an after-thought, "oh, we just launched the XYZ campaign, how did we do?" We want to bring the measurement discussion to the campaign planning phase and proactively identify the campaign success metrics. Then ensure you have your website, analytics tool and reports are properly configured to support measuring these metrics.

Let's take email marketing campaigns as an example. Your email solution provider typically provides a lot of stats about open rate, click-through rates, number of unsubscribers, etc. In addition to these important metrics, we would want to have post-click visibility. Are email visitors coming to the site and bouncing off right away? Are they engaged? Are they buying? These important questions can be answered and acted upon with Google Analytics (and other analytics tools as well). In order to get these insights, you want to ensure that the clicks from your email campaigns are identified as "email" traffic and show accordingly in the analytics report. There is a process of "tagging" the links in your email campaign with parameters so that your analytics tools can place this traffic in the "email" segment.

Another example is measuring lift in traffic off branding or awareness campaigns. You might want to look for a bump in your direct traffic (people who typed your URL directly in their browsers). In addition, you can look at your organic or natural search traffic. A lot of us these days don't type the URL in the browser, we get lazy :), and we just type the company name or the product name in the Google search box. Google Analytics captures the keywords that searchers type in the search box. You can now, on the fly, segment this data into two groups, branded and non-branded keywords. If you start seeing a significant lift in traffic from your branded keywords, it's definitely a strong signal, and your branding folks deserve a pat on the back!

WebProNews: How much of a company's staff should be involved the implementation/interpretation of web analytics?

Feras Alhlou: Depends. Every organization varies. The complexity of the website, the number of online properties, the level of marketing programs, the maturity of measurement culture, and other aspects, all play a role in the resources required for implementation and analysis. Analytics might start off as a task on the webmaster or the marketing manager to-do. Hopefully with some early wins, more resources can be recruited (or lobbied for!). The most important element for success is to have a clear idea of website objectives and take few steps towards measuring these goals. From there if the internal resources are not available, outsourcing to consultants is definitely an option we see companies leveraging. Consultants can bring best practices, instant know-how and can help companies build the required process. But regardless, someone internally needs to own measurement and have some passion for it (and getting an executive champion on your side is almost a pre-requisite :)).

WebProNews: Is it better to have more people involved or less so it is more controlled?

Feras Alhlou: For implementation more control is probably better, with a system of checks and balances in place. Once we start getting data and reports, we want all stakeholders to see and act on these reports. Some internal training is recommended, even on things like terminology, so your team knows what "conversion" means, and what "bounce rate" is, etc.. Training and extracting actionable insights from reports won't happen overnight, so plan for a gradual introduction of these concepts to your team members and focus on what is important to them. The power of tools like Google Analytics is that the marketing & web teams have more flexibility to get things done outside of the IT realm. They can have direct access to the reports, reports and dashboards can be automatically emailed to them (daily, weekly, monthly), the advanced user interface allows for real time segmentation, filtering, custom reporting, and trending, all very useful for the marketer.

WebProNews would like to thank Clifton and Alhlou for providing our readers with their insight into web analytics implementation.

How many people do you have involved in the web analyitcs process at your company? Comment here.

Google Website Optimizer Gets an API

Chris Crum — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:55:47 +0000

Google has released a new Website Optimizer Experiment Management API. This means developers can utilize Website Optimizer for their own applications and experiments.

Website Optimizer is a tool from Google that allows users to perform simple A/B and multivariate testing on websites to see what works and what doesn't. WebProNews discussed the tool at length earlier this year. Here is a webinar video that will familiarize you with it as well:

"Website Optimizer handles splitting a website's traffic, serving different variations, and crunching the numbers to find statistical significance," Google says. "Creating experiments with Website Optimizer usually involves a lot of back and forth between your website and the Website Optimizer interface. Using the API, you can integrate Website Optimizer into your platform. In short, you can create and launch experiments from whatever tool you use to edit your site."

The API is an extension of the Google Analytics API, and is part of Google Analytics Labs. Being a labs feature means that it may not be perfect, and users may experience some bugs.

Google says that developers should look at the Google Analytics Data API Protocol document for general information about the GA feeds. The sections on Quota Policy, Audience, Getting Started, and Authentication are relevant to the Website Optimizer API.

Google Analytics Gets a Bunch of New Features

Chris Crum — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:27:46 +0000

Google announced a number of new and upcoming features for Google Analytics today. The features, Google says, focus on three things: power, flexibility, and intelligence.

It is the intelligence aspect, which Google places the most prominence on, and this comes in the form of a feature called "Analytics Intelligence," which will provide users with automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of their site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly, and monthly periods. Users can be notified by email or right within the Google Analytics user interface.

Google has also added goals for "time on site" and "pages per visit," as well as the ability to define up to 20 goals per profile. Here's some more on that:

Google Analytics now tracks mobile websites and mobile apps so you can better measure your mobile marketing efforts. They will be adding a code snippet for users to add to their mobile sites. PHP, Perl, JSP, and ASPX sites will be supported.

"iPhone and Android mobile application developers can now also track how users engage with apps, just as with tracking engagement on a website," says Dai Pham of the Google Analytics Team. "What's more, for apps on Android devices, usage can be tied back to ad campaigns: from ad to marketplace to download to engagement."

They have also added Advanced Table Filtering, which allows you to filter the rows in a table based on different metric conditions. Here's more on that feature:

Now when you create a Custom Report, you can select Unique Visitors as a metric against any dimensions in Google Analytics, and they are also adding multiple custom variables to the tracking API and making it easy to share Custom Reports and Advanced Segments.

Google says that it will be going into more detail on the new features in the coming days on the Google Analytics Blog. The features will be appearing in Google Analytics accounts gradually over the coming weeks.

Google Adds Heavily Requested Features to Analytics API

Chris Crum — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:01:49 +0000

Google has released some new features for the Google Analytics API, including event tracking, navigational data, and increased filter length. The company says these features were prioritized based on feedback from users, with event tracking being the most requested feature.

Event tracking allows users to measure the number of user interactions with a site. You can track things like the total number of times a white paper is downloaded, the length of time it takes to load a video, the number of validation errors users get when filling out a form, etc.

"To illustrate, let's look at Sprout. Sprout's integration with Google Analytics helps customers track user interaction within their Sprout content," explains Nick Mihailovski of the Google Analytics Team. "However, users currently must log into the Sprout interface to see billing and account management data, and then also log into Google Analytics to see how their own sprouts are performing. Now that event tracking is available through the API, companies like Sprout can pull the interaction metrics tracked by Google Analytics events and present them directly in clients' performance dashboards--effectively leveraging Google Analytics as a platform to power their analysis reports."

The Event Tracking API docs can be found here.

With navigational data, developers can create new visualizations to see what gets the most clicks. For example, customer site overlays can be created, and the navigational data can be analyzed to see what performs the best.

Filter expression length has been increased to 128 characters, which means developers can perform more complex queries with fewer requests to the API. This can save bandwidth and quota, according to Mihailovski.

All of the changes to the Google Analytics API can be found at the public change log. This is periodically updated whenever changes are made to the API.

Getting to Know the Google Analytics Data Export API

Chris Crum — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:17:36 +0000

This week Google unveiled the Data Feed Query Explorer for the Google Analytics Data Export API. This was essentially created to help users get a grasp on what can be done with the API.

"Isolate, integrate, and share the data that you want to see in a huge variety of ways. Still, it's this first step that can be overwhelming," says Nick Mihailovski of the Google Analytics API Team. "How to build a query from scratch, especially when you're used to the point-and-click experience of the your Google Analytics account's reports?"

The Query Explorer allows you to:

- See the data feed request constructed for you as you select different dimensions and metrics

- Figure out exactly which metric/dimension combination works

- Dial in the exact sorting and filtering that you need

- Use the permalink for any query that you build

"The Query Explorer is the perfect place to start exploring the Data Export API," says Mihailovski. "You can use the tool to quickly get data from your Analytics account before you even start to write your first line of code. Log into the tool, select a profile, and get a display of data in seconds. From there, you can figure out just what data you want, while at the same time learning how to use the API."

Documentation links are included with the tool. Users should keep in mind that the tool is in beta. Google says they just wanted to get it released as soon as possible so users could start exploring the API.

Google Analytics Gets Event Tracking Advanced Segments

Chris Crum — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:00:21 +0000

Google announced today that users tracking events on their site using Google Analytics can now define advanced segments to isolate event-related sites. The company points to an example of looking at how visits with events compares to visits overall.
"The variety of event related segments that you can create is only limited by the event details you track," says Alden DeSoto of the Google Analytics Team. "So, if you track video interactions, you can create segments that only include visits during which videos were viewed."

Watch the following clip to get a better grasp:

To define advanced segments to isolate event-related visits, you would define one that only includes visits with events (set "total events greater than 0" for your condition), then make it active. Then you'll be able to compare All Visits vs. Visits with Events in your reports.

Google has an event tracking guide set up that goes through set-up, the anatomy of event tracking, and implementation considerations. This document should pretty much provide you with all you need to know on the subject.

Google Dispels Ten Analytics Myths

Doug Caverly — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:36:05 +0000

Like anything, Google Analytics has its fans and its critics, and both sides may distort the truth a little to support their position. But Google recently named ten specific myths about Analytics and embarked on a special effort to debunk them.

Now, posting Google's arguments here might amount to preaching to the choir. Also, since the post on the Google Analytics Blog is about 1,500 words long, reading them all would take up a bit of your time. So here are the ten myths (as identified by Google), plain and simple:

1: "You get what you pay for." Google Analytics is free, which means the system is down a lot

2: Google Analytics is basic and doesn't have any "advanced" features or metrics

3: Google Analytics only supports third-party cookies

4: Google Analytics is not really accurate

5: It's not possible to export your data from Google Analytics

6: With Google Analytics you can't control your data

7: There is no professional support for Google Analytics

8: Google Analytics does not support A/B or multivariate testing and isn't well-integrated with other tools

9: You can't segment data in Google Analytics

10: You have to spend a lot of money to get "real" web analytics

If any of these statements sound accurate to you, click through to the original post to get Google's take. Otherwise, supporters of Google Analytics may just find it interesting that these matters were highlighted at all.

Google appears to be going after new customers by addressing some very basic issues. This could indicate that the company's trying to expand the service's reach by introducing it to a whole new group of not-especially-tech-savvy individuals.

Web Analytics Market to Reach Nearly $1 Billion in US

Chris Crum — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:35:31 +0000

Research from Forrester indicates that the US Web Analytics Market is on track to reach nearly a billion dollars by 2014. Forrester attributes this to a need for marketing organizations to be more accountable to businesses.

Also at play is a shift in marketing budgets' allocation for interactive channels, for the purpose of matching consumers' migration online, the firm notes. The market is expected to grow to $953 million by 2014, which would be a 17% compound annual growth rate.

"Market usage of Web analytics is in the awkward adolescence stage," says Forrester Senior Analyst John Lovett. "While the analytics market is beginning to develop, significant change is imminent, and maturity is still off in the distance."

The emergence of "highly capable," free analytics tools is changing the game, as Forrester notes, but there are still challenges:

- the need for human analysis of large amounts of data

- the ability to develop metrics

- the necessity to integrate marketing and IT

"The democratization of data is looming," he adds. "Ultimately, Web analytics will become part of a broader array of integrated services supporting marketing professionals who focus on customer intelligence."

Google is certainly doing all it can to get marketers using its Analytics service. The company is constantly releasing how-tos, rolling out integrations, and adding features. With Google being such a big part of online marketing, I'd say it has a tremendous advantage in the market based on its brand name alone.

Forrester offers a full report for the US Web Analytics Forecast - 2008-2014 (for a price). Forrester clients get it for free.

Google Slows to a Crawl

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:11:14 +0000

Update: Google has addressed the issue on the Official Blog. The company says:

An error in one of our systems caused us to direct some of our web traffic through Asia, which created a traffic jam. As a result, about 14% of our users experienced slow services or even interruptions. We've been working hard to make our services ultrafast and "always on," so it's especially embarrassing when a glitch like this one happens. We're very sorry that it happened, and you can be sure that we'll be working even harder to make sure that a similar problem won't happen again. All planes are back on schedule now.

Original Article: In case you didn’t notice, Google had a bad hair day on Thursday. Users noticed a remarkable slowdown in nearly every facet of Google’s vast empire—from Gmail, to Google Search, Google Maps, Google Apps, Google Reader, Google News, Google Docs, Google Analytics, Blogger, AdSense, Images, etc.

Twitter and Facebook, which both seemed to be doing fine, turned up a popular stream of complaint, distress, and panic over the Google outage. Frantic people who were addicted to Google Reader, trying to check their e-mail, or just wanting to get a piece of the news were first fidgety, and later enraged, when all things Google went kaput.

The outages seemed to be localized in the U.S. European and Asian users were plugging along just fine. In some places, the outage lasted just one hour. In other places, workers were struggling all morning. At approximately noon on Thursday, the panic had subsided, and somewhere in the depths of Google, some technician was wiping the sweat off his brow.

The outage, while a temporary inconvenience, points to a gargantuan issue: the world is dependent on Google. Just how integral is Google in our daily lives? More, perhaps, than we realize. The vast Google horizons have extended to affect how we check the weather, keep up to date with the news, communicate with the ones we love, and find what we’re looking for. The Thursday scare was a wake up call to the level of dependence, or independence, we may enjoy (or not enjoy) from Google’s ubiquitous presence. A phrase comes to mind: “when Atlas shrugged…” Perhaps this was the day that Google shrugged.

Soon, Google should have a report on what happened.

4 New Updates Coming to Google Analytics

Chris Crum — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:40:04 +0000

At eMetrics in San Jose, Google's Brett Crosby announced 4 new features that are coming to Google Analytics. The features are aimed specifically at the more advanced users of the tool. They are:

1. Pivoting Dimensions
2. Secondary Dimensions
3. Share Custom Reports and Advanced Segment Customizations
4. Manage Customizations Across Profiles

Pivoting and Secondary Dimensions are available in most table views that allow inline cross-tabular analysis of data.

"You can use these new power features to do in-depth, on-the-fly analysis and see all the information in the same table," explains Crosby. "View data by two dimensions at once, such as keywords and cities. Next, pivot by another dimension such as source, while also viewing two additional metrics such as visits and pages/visit.... all within a single table view."

The sharing feature means you can post the URL of a custom report to your blog or email it to somebody. When that person clicks on it, they import the report structure. They can then see the report with their own data in it.

"Now people can share their more interesting Google Analytics customizations without having to send detailed instructions, just share a URL!" says Crosby.

As far as managing customizations across profiles, you can choose which ones get which custom reports and advanced segments. This way, not everyone has to have access to the same things.

Each of the new features are in beta and will begin rolling out within users' reports over the next few weeks.

More Advertisers Invited To Use Yahoo Web Analytics

Doug Caverly — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:54:42 +0000

It looks like another shot's been fired in the Web analytics war. Yahoo Web Analytics has been made available - for free - to search and display advertisers who work with account support teams and managers.

Four days ago, Yahoo announced a new Web Analytics look, some more reports, and enhanced features. Then, just two days ago, Google made its own move in this conflict by allowing for the integration of all AdSense accounts with Google Analytics. The reaction of most users was pretty positive.

Cue Yahoo's not-so-subtle attempt to come out of any comparison on top, with a post on the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog stating, "'Yahoo!'s emerging Web Analytics service surpasses Google in several key categories relevant to enterprises,' says a recent report from independent analyst firm CMS Watch."

Otherwise, the post explained, "Search advertisers can use Yahoo! Web Analytics to track performance of their campaigns - not just Yahoo! Search Marketing, but campaigns on other search engines, display campaigns, even email campaigns - from click to conversion."

And advertisers who aren't eligible to use Yahoo Web Analytics were directed to try Yahoo's Full Analytics or Conversion Only Analytics instead.

It'll be interesting to see what the competitors come up with next.

Google Links AdSense Accounts with Google Analytics

Chris Crum — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:09:44 +0000

Google is now offering wide availability of Google Analytics and AdSense integration. AdSense publishers who wish to make their site more profitable are going to want to link their AdSense accounts with a Google Analytics account.

To do so, you simply need to log in to AdSense, click the link that says "Integrate your AdSense account with Google Analytics" on the Reports > Overview tab, and follow the on-screen instructions as illustrated in this clip:

The video you'll really want to pay attention to however is the following one, which provides a nice walkthrough explaining how to read reports for your AdSense account in Google Analytics:

When the accounts are linked, users will find an AdSense menu under the "content" section in Analytics. Here you can find the "Top AdSense Content" report, which lets you view details about specific pages and analyze ad performance. You will also find the "Top AdSense Referrers" report, which shows you how different incoming traffic sources contribute to your revenue, and the "AdSense Trading" report, which lets you analyze how your site generates revenue during different times of the day or days of the week.

The linking of AdSense and Analytics accounts should be a big step in the direction of convenience for analyzing important data regarding the profitability of AdSense publishers' sites. There is plenty of potential for increasing said profitability if publishers choose to act on their findings.

Google Launches API for Google Analytics

Chris Crum — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:23:57 +0000

Google as announced the release of an API for Google Analytics. This means developers will be able to do all kinds of fun stuff with the program.

"Large organizations and agencies now have a standardized platform for integrating Analytics data with their own business data," says Google's Nick Mihailovski. "Developers can integrate Google Analytics into their existing products and create standalone applications that they sell. Users could see snapshots of their Analytics data in developer created dashboards and gadgets. Individuals and business owners will have opportunities to access their Google Analytics information in a variety of new ways."

The Google Analytics Developer Site has numerous examples of what non-Google developers are doing with it. Google does note that it doesn't vouch for performance of any o the apps using it.

Google suggests using the following three resources when beginning to develop using the Google Analytics API:

- The documentation at Google Code
- the Google Analytics API Notify email group
- the Google Analytics APIs Group

For more details about how the API works, you can read this blog post from Google about it. It's going to be very interesting to see where developers take Google Analytics now.

Google Making Changes to Search Referrals

Chris Crum — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:59:48 +0000

Update: Google now says: We initially reported that Urchin Software might require a patch to handle the new URL structure, but after some additional testing, it turns out no patch is needed. Urchin can handle both the current and new URLs.

Original article: Google is changing referral URLs on results pages. What up until now has looked something like this:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flowers&btnG=Google+Search

will now look more like this:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fmypage.htm&ei=0SjdSa-1N5O8M_qW8dQN&rct=j&q=flowers&usg=AFQjCNHJXSUh7Vw7oubPaO3tZOzz-F-u_w&sig2=X8uCFh6IoPtnwmvGMULQfw

Google says that if you don't analyze your own traffic logs, use Urchin web analytics software, or develop web analytics software, this information probably won't affect you. Google Analytics is not affected.

"The key difference between these two urls is that instead of "/search?" the URL contains a '/url?'," says Brett Crosby of the Google Analytics Team. "If you run your own analyses, be sure that you do not depend on the '/search?' portion of the URL to determine if a visit started with an organic search click. Google Analytics does not depend on the '/search?' string in the referrer, so users of Google Analytics will not notice a difference in their reports, but other analytics packages may need to adapt to this change in our referrer string to maintain accurate reports."

Web Technologist Niall Kennedy does a good job of simplifying the situation. "The way your website interprets traffic from one of its top providers will change later this week," he says. "You will need to adjust scripts and check for updates to analytics software where appropriate. If you notice a huge drop in measured search referrals from Google don't panic. Just make sure you are measuring the correct actions."

He also suggests that Google is probably making this change to better track search actions and shield URL parameters from sites downstream.

Google says the new URLs will initially only occur in a small percentage of searches. You can expect to see both versions while the changes roll out. Google will be offering a software update for Urchin soon for those using UTM-based tracking. More details here.

New AdWords Templates From an Analytical Standpoint

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:47:28 +0000

Google recently launched some new templates for the AdWords Display Ad Builder. These templates cater to rich media and video ad content.

The templates allow advertisers to highlight several different products in one ad, and send them each to different landing pages with unique URLs. If you're not familiar with the templates, watch the following clip:

The templates offer a way to potentially get consumers more engaged with ads, but from an analytics standpoint, they can also curb bounce rate. "Using Google Analytics, you can add tracking parameters to the end of each destination URL, telling you exactly which items users found to be most interesting in the ad," explains Ryan Hayward at the Google Analytics Blog. "This will give you insights on your creative, such as which items to focus on and how prominently they should be featured in the ads."

He gives an example of running ads selling different kinds of shoes with unique landing pages. You can take the analytical data and figure out which shoe is getting clicked on the most, then tailor your campaign to focus more on that particular shoe.

I'd go a bit further and say you could look at the ones that aren't getting clicked on as much and perhaps make adjustments in how they are being presented.

So in other words, the templates are not only giving you a way to sell various items through a single clickable ad, but they can ultimately help you decide which products need more focus, for better or for worse.

Google Analytics Certification Program Launched

Chris Crum — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:46:51 +0000

Today Google announced a new online course that will help interested parties prepare to get a Google Analytics certification. It costs $50 to take the test to get certified, but to me the more interesting part is the course itself.

You're looking at step-by-step visual walkthroughs of every feature that Google Analytics has to offer, and while taking the test costs a little money, the course itself is free.

Web analytics are extremely important to the success of any online business, and knowing your tools inside out will only help you act upon your findings better. With this course, you can go straight to any section you're a little hazy on or just go through the whole thing. You're bound to come out more knowledgeable afterward. Let's take a look at what the lessons cover:

First Steps

- Introduction to Google Analytics
- Interface Navigation
- Installing the Google Analytics Tracking Code

Interpreting Reports

- Guidelines
- Pageviews, Visits, and Visitors
- Time Metrics
- Traffic sources
- Content Reports

Fundamentals

- Profiles in Google Analytics
- Campaign Tracking and AdWords Integration
- Analysis Focus - AdWords
- Goals in Google Analytics
- Analysis Focus - Funnel Visualization
- Filters in Google Analytics
- Regex and Google Analytics
- Cookies and Google Analytics
- eCommerce Tracking
- Analysis Focus - Revenue Metrics
- Domains and Subdomains

In-Depth Analysis

- Custom Reporting
- Advanced segmentation
- Motion Charts
- Internal Site Search
- Event Tracking and Virutal Pageviews
- The Custom Visior Segment Variable
- Additional Customizations

That's quite a bit of ground to cover, but ground that you will find more solid in terms of feeling comfortable in your web analytics skills, once you clear it. If you are looking to provide consulting to others, it probably wouldn't hurt to go after the certification either just so you have some credentials. You just need a 75% on the test to pass.

If you don't plan to do any consulting, the worst thing that happens is you get a lot smarter in your know-how of Google Analytics, and that can't be a bad thing either.

Don't Overlook iPhone Analytics

Chris Crum — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:39:52 +0000

Google has added an advanced segment to Google Analytics looking specifically at visits to your site coming from iPhones. This should prove very useful to webmasters as iPhones have obviously caught on in a big way.

All you have to do to enable this segment is:

1. Click the drop down menu next to "Advanced Segments" at the top-right of any report

2. Select "Visits from iPhone"

3. Turn off "All Visits" when viewing your iPhone segement

"If the percentage of total visits to your site from the iPhone is small, it will be difficult to visualize the two sets on numbers on the same graph," explains Chrix Finne of the Google Mobile Ads Team.

Each Google Analytics report is available under the iPhone advanced segment. "If you use AdWords, you can now use Analytics to better analyze the performance of any campaigns that use our new iPhone and high-end mobile targeting feature," explains Finne.

"We've added the iPhone segment to get you started, but you can always create a custom Advanced Segment to compare or combine iPhone visits with other mobile operating systems; for instance, if you're targeting ads in AdWords to iPhone & high end mobile devices (which currently includes Android devices), you can create a new segment for iPhone & Android."

Using advanced segments in general can have a tremendous impact on the success of your business. This is a topic I recently discussed with E-Nor President Feras Alhlou after he posted on the subject at the Google Analytics Blog. Web analytics are a part of marketing that is growing in importance as search engines continue to evolve in their ways of delivering results.

Report: Yahoo Web Analytics Beats Google in Key Areas

Chris Crum — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:20:58 +0000

CMS Watch, which evaluates and reports on content-related technologies, has issued a report saying that Yahoo Web Analytics (formerly IndexTools) is better than Google Analytics in a number of key areas.

"Google Analytics made a name for itself by providing a no-cost, easy-to-use service," explained CMS Watch contributing analyst Phil Kemelor, "but it's no longer the only free analytics game in town."

Areas where Yahoo excels over Google according to CMS Watch include:

- Better access control options and simpler approach to multi-site analytics

- Larger default monthly page-view limits (200MM vs. 5MM - unless you have an active AdWords campaign)

- Access to traffic data: Both vendors retain the right to hold and use your web analytics data for their own purposes, but only Yahoo! gives you the ability to export out your raw, unaggregated data

- Longer historical availability of raw data

CMS Watch is quick to point out however, that Yahoo has its share of drawbacks, citing administrative complexity and lack of 24/7 tech support. A Yahoo Spokesperson tells me, "We're considering adding 24/7 technical support but haven't made a decision yet." So we'll see waht happens there.

"Ultimately, for some enterprises, neither Google nor Yahoo! makes a good fit, and those customers should consider fee-based web analytics solutions," says CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne.

Many users are still going to be attracted to that Google brand. Google Analytics gets far more play in the media and in the Blogosphere, and Google is frequently throwing out tips on how to better use its service. This might be a strategy Yahoo wants to consider if it intends to boost its own use.

Google makes frequent posts to the Google Analytics blog, which is linked to from the Google Analytics homepage. There is no blog link present from the Yahoo Web Analytics page.

Keyword List Expansion Tips From Google

Chris Crum — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:00:18 +0000

Using the right keywords in your search engine marketing campaigns will obviously yield the best results. Unfortunately, we don't always know what those best keywords are. And even if we do have the best ones nailed, there might be others that would potentially perform just as well or close. On the Google Analytics Blog, Google offers a few tips for expanding your keyword lists to potentially get the most out of your campaign.

First off, they suggest using the Google Analytics Keyword Report to look at the best performing keywords. This is demonstrated nicely in this sixty-second video:

Next up is the search-based keyword tool. This gives you keyword ideas based on actual Google search queries. It matches specific pages of your site with your ad and search share.

Then you have Google Insights for Search, which lets you compare search volume patterns across specific regions categories and time frames. Narrow data to specific regions, anticipate demand by seasonality, and look at search volume by geographic region.

Perhaps the best part about all of these is the fact that they are free. With ad budgets tightening in a down economy, that's a pretty enticing word. By the way, you may want to consider taking your SEO in-house. If you haven't seen it, Google has an entire page of free tools that can help marketers. It's certainly worth perusing.

Using Advanced Segments in Google Analytics

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:57:17 +0000

I had a chat with E-Nor President Feras Alhlou after reading a guest post of his on the Official Google Analytics Blog. He was asked by Google to make a post, as E-Nor is a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant and is very active on a number of Google Analytics (GA) support fronts.

The post in particular was about using advanced segments in Google Analytics when managing a successful eCommerce business. After breaking down a scenario with the CEO of a successful company requesting the numbers on sales between men's products vs. women's products, Alhlou offers three steps for obtaining information like this through GA (elaborated on in the post):

1. Find out if there is a unique URL identifier that distinguishes men's and women's products

2. Create two advanced segments based on the unique URL identifier: one for men's products, and one for women's products

3. Apply these segments to the reports to compare metrics/trends for each product category

Despite whether or not your business has already become successful, advanced segments are something you should probably be paying attention to.

"If a business is not measuring/tracking/trending/segmenting, I don't know how they can remain in business, or at least remain competitive in business," Alhlou tells me. "Less successful businesses can/should leverage the power of GA/Advanced segments to understand which campaigns are bringing the ROI, what actions are visitors doing on their sites, what their engaged visitors do on their sites, etc."

"All of that is very doable, and more," he added. "It needs some commitment by the business to invest in their internal resources and/or bringing in an analytics consultant to help create an analytics culture and start improving things."

As traditional search engine optimization tactics become less reliable in an ever-changing world of how search results are delivered to us, analytics are going to be more important than ever for online businesses trying to get the most of out of their marketing efforts.

These are the kinds of things businesses are going to need to pay attention to. While they may seem obvious to the savvy web marketer, it is still clear that a lot of businesses trying to make it online are struggling to do so for lack of understanding of the tools available to them.

Using the Data that Site Search Uncovers

Chris Crum — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:08:30 +0000

I recently posted about ways to get more conversions out of Google Site Search. This was based on tips that Google itself offered for capitalizing on its potential. These tips were:

1. Make your search box easy to find
2. Make sure search is always available
3. Customize the appearance of search to fit your site
4. Experiment
5. Be open to feedback
6. Learn what users are looking for
7. Let visitors know who's got your back

Google has now gone another step further in trying to help users get the most out of their site search efforts, and that involves tracking your internal site search on the analytics tip.

Google has thrown together the following "Google Analytics in 60 Seconds" video (although the video actually clocks in at 1:49) that shows you how to get the most out of your site search data by using Google Analytics:

Google also gives you five questions to ask of your site search data (each of which are elaborated on here):

1. How frequently do visitors use my search box and what are they looking for?
2. Where do searches begin and end?
3. Are visitors satisfied with what they find?
4. How do different groups of visitors search my site?
5. What business outcomes result from visitors searching my site?

Site search in general is important to he usability of your site. This is especially true if you are selling good. The easier it is for people to find the information/products they are looking for, the more likely they will be to convert. By analyzing the data that comes from user's search habits at your site, you can make the necessary adjustments for improvement and put yourself on the path to more sales.

Google Sites, Analytics Get Cozy

Doug Caverly — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:41:47 +0000

Even though people can accomplish great things while working as a team, not being able to measure the results is something of a limiting factor. To fix this problem with Google Sites, then, an integration with Google Analytics has been announced.

Google Analytics is, of course, the tool that helps website owners figure out how well they're doing in terms of traffic and conversions. Google Sites is a site-building application that allows multiple users to edit a single project. Bringing the two things together seems like a logical move.

Google Sites/Analytics Integration

As for how to actually pull it off, a post on the Google Analytics Blog tells readers, "Installing the tracking code for your Google Sites website requires just a few simple steps. After creating a new account and profile for your website within Analytics, another JavaScript code snippet will be generated with a new tracking ID for your site (the tracking ID from within the code snippet is always in this format: UA-XXXXXXX-XX). You can just paste the new tracking ID into your Google Sites settings page under Other Stuff > Statistics."

Then be sure to apply the code to all of the site's current pages and any ones that are created later.

Existing Google Sites users are almost sure to be pleased with this development. Since Google Analytics is so popular, this could help encourage other people to embrace Google Sites, too.

Google Language, Land Expansions Take Place

Doug Caverly — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:37:09 +0000

It seems that a little recession isn't going to halt everyone's favorite search giant. Google is continuing to branch out, with a recent growth spurt seeing it buy more land in Mountain View and make sure people who speak all sorts of languages can use its products.

Let's start with the translation stuff. Sites run by native French speakers may start taking off since a French version of the Official Google Analytics Blog has been introduced. Some posts will be crossovers from the original, while others will relate more France-specific information and tips.

Then there are the big steps forward involving Picasa. The picture-sharing site's most recently introduced features have been made available in 38 languages. Also, as Jason Cook wrote on the Official Google Blog, "[W]e just launched automatic comment translation on Picasa Web Albums, which harnesses Google Translate to make sure you know that '美麗的落日' means 'Beautiful sunset!'"

Finally, we have a physical expansion. It seems that Google bought four buildings in Mountain View, netting it about 240,000 square feet. Katherine Conrad reports, "Two of the buildings will be leased back to their current occupants," and its plans the others remains unknown.

"Vis de la recession" is the phrase that Google Translate offers when asked to translate "screw the recession" into French.

Google Offers New Resource for Analytics Information

Chris Crum — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:11:34 +0000

Google seems to really want to spread awareness about Google Analytics, and get more people to understand how to use all of its features. This is a good thing because analytics are obviously important for keeping your site's performance up to its potential.

A couple weeks ago they announced a new Google Analytics Help Forum with participation from Google employees as well as top contributors, and seasoned analytics pros:

Now they've launched a YouTube channel full of videos for analytics education. "If you're looking for a beginner's guide to interpreting and acting on your data, an introduction to motion charts, or you want to learn how perform placement targeting in 60 seconds, you can now find it at youtube.com/googleanalytics," says Melissa Hsieh of the Google Analytics Team. "And, just to prove that we don't take ourselves too seriously, we'll add the occasional music video."

"We'll continue to listen for what you want to learn about and work on adding useful videos to the channel," she added. "If you want to be sure that you always stay up to date, you can subscribe to the Google Analytics Channel or even add an iGoogle gadget to your homepage."

Google Analytics users are probably going to want to keep their eye on this channel. As discussed repeatedly by people like Matt Cutts and Bruce Clay, search is going to be going through some big changes in the not-too-distant future, and analytics will be more important than ever as traditional SEO methods are harder to make use of.

Web Analytics: The Future, SEO, Tools, and Mistakes

Chris Crum — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:28:15 +0000

It's no secret that web analytics are important to the success of a website. It looks like that importance might even increase in the future as change unfolds in the search industry, throwing a fork in the spokes of how Internet marketers drive traffic to sites.

Web Analytics and SEO

Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz lists web analytics as one of the top seven reasons that companies are investing in SEO during the economic downturn. "It's sad, but true," he says. "When a downturn arrives or panic sets in, someone, maybe the first someone in a long time, checks the web analytics to see where revenue is still coming in. Not surprisingly, search engine referrals with their exceptional targeting and intent-matching are ranking high on the list."

Word on the street is that web analytics are going to be playing an even more crucial part than ever in traffic heading into the new year. As both Bruce Clay and Matt Cutts talk about in their respective interviews with WebProNews, Google is going to be getting more personalized with search results, and this is going to make traditional SEO strategies more difficult, and perhaps some even obsolete.

We discussed recently how your site's bounce rate might already play a role in your search engine rankings. SEO Black Hat shared some interesting findings and Google Analytics data regarding this:

Overall Traffic

Google Traffic

Bounce Rates

Obviously it's going to take some analysis to improve your bounce rate. Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, and Google Analytics group manager Brett Crosby discussed this with Mike McDonald at SES a while back:

Blog Analytics

Blogs have become a big part of business for many companies, and site-owners. Blogs shouldn't necessarily be treated like other sites when it comes to analytics however. "There are more companies blogging now than ever," says Lee Odden at Online Marketing Blog. "How do you measure results? Measuring the social web is a different thing than what most web analytics packages offer. It can be easy to start a blog, but making it successful requires an excellent feedback mechanism. Blog analytics is one of those sources of feedback to know what’s working and what’s not."

Odden is conducting a poll on preferred blog analytics tools, and so far Google Analytics is ahead by a long shot.

Kaushik discusses in-depth, six metrics that should be used to measure the success of a blog (as illustrated in his chart below) in a detailed blog post.

Video Analytics

As online video usage continues to trend upward and video search is improved upon, video analytics are going to carry increasing significance as well. It's going to be interesting to see the strides made in this department over the coming year.

YouTube has already begun offering a tool - YouTube Insight, which is an analytics program for videos that lets users get a look into where and by whom videos were posted. A couple months ago they released a feature for it that allows you to actually pinpoint the specific parts of videos that get viewed the most. This will be a huge metric, particularly when it comes to advertising. "If you give users the tools to attract larger audiences, they’ll create more ad inventory," as Advertising Age noted.

I'm sure there are a number of other video analytics tools out there, and it will be interesting to see what other tools (and metrics for that matter) become relevant.

Analytics Mistakes

Bryan Eisenberg at the Microsoft AdCenter Blog talks a good deal about the seven biggest mistakes of web analytics, which according to him are as follows:

1. Improper Implementation
2. No Goals Setup
3. No Segmentation
4. Paying Too Much Attention to Irrelevant Data
5. Not Setting up Milestone Events Documentation
6. Not Combining Quantitative Data with Qualitative Data
7. Not Taking Action On the Data

That last one is the one that should really be weighing on your business-minded conscience, and what is likely going to hurt you more than ever in the future. Although the first one will get you on the wrong track right from the start, so taking care of that should be a top priority.

Let me be blunt. Quit screwing around and start taking your analytical data seriously. It just might be the key to your business's survival as we face not only economic downturn, but a new world of Internet marketing waiting ahead for us. Thoughts?

Is Bounce Rate a Google Ranking Factor?

Chris Crum — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:18:04 +0000

Bounce rates are a metric that may become more of a factor as SEOs struggle with the ever-changing world of SERPs, which some are predicting to be become much more personalized over the coming year. As discussed in an interview with Mike McDonald (video below), big name SEO Bruce Clay notes that going forward, SEOs are going to have to look at analytics, measure traffic, bounce rates, action, etc., and ask themselves questions like did I get the conversion I was after?

A post today from SEO Black Hat seems to indicate that bounce rates are already a significant factor in ranking. They provide the following screenshots showing Google Analytics data for a "white hat" site (click any of them to view the larger versions at SEO Black Hat:

Overall Traffic

Google Traffic

Bounce Rates

Hmm. See any correlation there? "This is exactly the pattern you would expect from a program designed to flush out terms with higher bounce rates and test them across other sties," writes the post's author QuadsZilla. "Moreover, this isn’t the first time I’ve recognized this pattern, it happens every 2-3 months on average." Quadzilla then notes the absence of any such information in Google's SEO starter guide, but points to a few cluews in the Analytics support page.

So, maybe bounce rates are something that you should be worried about. In all honesty, you should've been worried about them anyway, if nothing more than to keep people at your site. Nevermind if they got there through Google. The following video from SES a few months back goes over some Bounce rate information as Mike talks to Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, and Google Analytics group manager Brett Crosby.

Jason Miller offers some additonal insight based on the video, and Quadzilla is promising some tips on reducing bounce rates in the future.

Google Launches Google Analytics Forums

Jeremy Muncy — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:44:58 +0000

Anyone whose used the Help Center over at Google knows that it leaves something to be desired in regards to Google Analytics, and other topics. Sure, you seem to always find something related, but not quite enough to help you out. You need specific answers, but searching through the “O’s” at the bottom of the page is just flat out irritating.

Google may have finally heard your collective sighs of frustration mixed with a little boredom, as they've announced the new Google Analytics Help Forum.

That's right, a forum. A place where you can ask questions, and get answers... specific answers!

You'll be in direct contact with Google employees, top contributors, seasoned Analytics pros, and new posters. Worried that only n00bs will be "helping" you out? Fret not; answers are voted on by the community, with only the "Best Answers" gaining the visibility. Too make things even easier on you, as your typing your question a list of "Related Questions" will pop up.

If you're afraid of change, and liked the old Help Center it's still there. You can search until your heart's content, but it is closed for new posts. This allows the Analytics team to give their full attention to the new forum.

Google Analytics Gets A Handle On Flash

Doug Caverly — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:18:14 +0000

Flash content has long posed a lot of problems for the search and webmaster communities. Now Google – and more specifically, the newly introduced Google Analytics Tracking For Adobe Flash – intends to solve at least a few of them.

“In the past, Flash tracking was not provided out of the box, and every implementation had to be customized,” notes Nick Mihailovski in a post on the Google Analytics Blog. “Moreover, there was a lack of standards, and new developers who tracked Flash had to create their own processes to get it working.”

This new feature should help site owners figure out whether or not their Flash content is engaging visitors. A company called Sprout has tested it, and their Vice President of Engineering came away impressed.

Would-be users with fewer technical skills should be all set, too. Mihailovski writes, “We know there are many levels of experience in the Flash/Flex community so we tried to make it easy for both non-technical designers as well as seasoned ActionScript programmers to take full advantage of this Google Analytics Tracking For Flash. We’ve provided tracking libraries for both Flash and Flex . . .”

And Mihailovski’s “we,” in case you’re wondering where to send thank-you notes, includes Adobe. Google Analytics Tracking For Adobe Flash was apparently a joint project between Google, Adobe, and “a few ace third party developers.”