The Google Analytics Revolution
Google bought Urchin Web Analytics in 2005. Since then we have seen some major changes to the original Urchin software. Earlier this year Google upgraded their analytics offering significantly. Google Analytics is now a very popular and powerful website reporting tool.
Fatpublisher have up until now offered a customised version of webalizer to all clients. We now simply recommend and configure Google Analytics accounts. Webalizer continues to be available however we have found that as soon as our clients begin using Google Analytics they very rarely refer to webalizer anymore.
Google Analytics offers some very imporant things that webalizer, and many other website reporting tools could never do:
- click tracking: every link or image that appears in a page is tracked and reported in terms of a percentage of total clicks
- email reports: google analytics can send you an automated statistics report at times appropriate to your businesses reporting cycle
- organic clicks Vs pay per click comparisons: report the cost per click associated with organic search engine optimisation and pay per click programs (adwords etc)
- campaign reporting: track online and offline campaigns by first associating a campaign ID to each banner ad, text link or print ad
The fact that all of these features are offered on top of the usual website reporting statistics (such as unique visits, page views, search engine keyword reporting etc) and offered without a cost, has seen Google Analytics rise to become the preferred analytics package for small to medium enterprise.
Google Analytics is an empowering tool for business. Fatpublisher are happy to discuss and answer Google Analytics questions with our clients as they arise. We also encourage you to spend a few minutes (or hours) reading the many resources available online:
Google Analytics Help Centre
Google Groups : Analytics Help
Analytics Blog
