·         German Government May Fine Businesses for Using Google Analytics

How much do you rely on web analytics? Probably a great deal, and with good reason. It's incredibly hard to get ahead online without looking at analytics and using that information to your advantage. Many of you probably use Google Analytics for this, but what if the government threatened to fine you for doing so? 

That is what appears to be happening in Germany. German authorities are warning companies in that country that they could face legal action and/or fines if they use Google Analytics, claiming the tool violates people's privacy. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Germany has broken off talks with Google over the matter, which apparently comes as a surprise to Google itself. 

"Google says it wasn't aware that discussions with German officials had ended, and that it was actively working to address their concerns," reports Christopher Lawton. 

A Google spokesperson is quoted as saying, "Google Analytics complies with European data protection laws and is used by other European data protection authorities on their own websites."

Google had previously agreed to provide webmasters with a way to anonymize IP addresses and an opt-out option for web browsers, but the option isn't available for all browsers, and this was not enough for the German authorities. 

Google has a history of privacy-related hurdles in Germany, much of it stemming from Google Maps Street View. In fact, after years of struggle, Google only debuted Street View in the country a couple months ago, albeit a limited version. Prior to that, hundreds of thousands of Germans had already opted out of it. 

Of course Google is no stranger to privacy concerns anywhere else in the world either, including here in the U.S. Consumer Watchdog has famously made animated videos portraying the company as a predator to privacy, and calling for a "do not track" list for the web, similar to the "do not call" list. 

Google is hardly the only company tracking online users and certainly not the only provider of web analytics solutions, but the stature, size, and dominance of Google as a web company must only work against it in situations like the one in Germany. 

Google states that Google Analytics collects information anonymously, and reports website trends without identifying individual visitors. Furthermore, all website owners using Google Analytics are required to have a privacy policy that fully discloses the use of Google Analytics.

"Google Analytics does not report the actual IP address information to Google Analytics customers," Google says in its privacy policy for Google Analytics. "Additionally, using a method known as IP masking, website owners that use Google Analytics have the option to tell Google Analytics to only use a portion of the IP address, rather than the entire IP address, for geolocation. Whether or not website owners use Google Analytics, they have access to IP addresses for visitors to their sites."

"Personal information is information that personally identifies you, such as your name, email address or billing information, or other data which can be reasonably linked to such information," the policy adds. "The Google Analytics Terms of Service, which all Analytics customers must adhere to, prohibits the tracking or collection of this information using Google Analytics or associating personal information with web analytics information."

Google's Analytics opt-out web browser add-on communicates with Google Analytics to indicate that info about the site should not be sent to Google Analytics. It's only available for IE, Chrome, and Firefox.

·         Google Launches In-Page Analytics Feature

The life of the average Google Analytics user is about to get rather less complicated.  Today, Google announced a beta feature called In-Page Analytics that should allow people to stop juggling tabs or dealing with older, less sophisticated tools.

In-Page Analytics works as an overlay (indeed, it replaces Site Overlay), allowing users to see data superimposed right over different products or design elements.  And as the video below explains, there are plenty of ways to fine-tune the readouts and view more details.

This looks quite promising, and Trevor Claiborne, a product marketing manager, suggested on the Google Analytics Blog, "Take In-Page for a spin and let us know what you think."

Just be aware: Claiborne continued, "In-Page Analytics is still in beta, so some things in the report may not work perfectly yet."  Also, "In-Page is currently available for all English users of Google Analytics."

Google's sure to continue refining the feature over time, though, and Claiborne hinted that the Google Analytics Team has some bigger tricks up its sleeve.

It's probably a good idea to get on good terms with In-Page Analytics as soon as possible in order to prepare for those changes and the holiday shopping season.

·         Google Launches Analytics Dashboard

Google has launched the Google Analytics Status Dashboard, which lets users check on the current status of components in Google Analytics, such as Data Collection, Web Report, and the GData API.

This means you can check on whether data from sites are being collected by Google Analytics servers correctly, whether users can view the reports correctly when they sign in to their accounts, and whether the APIs are working properly. 

The dashboard is not unlike the Google Apps Dashboard. 



"The Google Analytics Status Dashboard represents an additional layer of transparency that we believe will benefit all Google Analytics users, from Fortune 500 companies to personal websites," says Yi Wang of the Google Analytics product team. "The Status Dashboard is the best place to check for service availability of Google Analytics anywhere in the world."

·         Google Analytics SDK Now Supports Apple's iOS 4

Posted: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 20:07:43 +0000

Google announced the release of the latest version of its mobile SDK for Google Analytics. This version supports the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 4. 

The new version of the SDK (version 0.8), which is in beta, also includes fixes for Android. 

"If you are a current website administrator or Google Analytics developer and are beginning to branch out into Android or iOS development, the Google Analytics mobile SDKs can provide a familiar interface as you transition from tracking website visitors to mobile users," says the Google Analytics Team. 

"These SDKs for iOS and Android enable you to track user activity directly in your native mobile apps -- for example, you can see what 'pages' or panels of your application are the most popular or even how many clicks a particular button or control generates," the team adds. "As with Google Analytics for the web, this usage data can help provide insight on additions or enhancements necessary to boost user engagement or optimize your mobile ad spending. Even better, all 'page view' and event tracking data is viewable in the same interface that you're already accustomed to for tracking website statistics, and integrating it into your app is as simple as adding a few lines to your iOS or Android source code."

The SDK could prove quite useful for developers looking to monetize their apps, as Google Mobile Ads Product Manager Chrix Finne points out. 

"For example, you may find that users are browsing a significant number of pages that aren’t currently being monetized or that a particular ad unit converts better on certain pages than others," says Finne. "This type of rich usage data is crucial to optimizing the user experience as well as your revenue."

This post from Google has some sample code. Developer documentation for the SDK is here.

·         Google Adds Analytics Support to Chrome Extensions

If you have a Google Chrome extension, this news might interest you greatly. Google announced today that it has added support for Google Analytics to the Chrome Extension Gallery. 

The move, Google says, will "help you better understand how many people visit your extension pages, where they're coming from and more."

Users can specify a Google Analytics profile for each extension. This will start tracking the extension's page in GA like it was its own site.

"You can also use Google Analytics to track the usage of your extension once it’s installed," says Google software engineer Qian Huang. "Check out this tutorial that explains how to integrate Google Analytics such that you can analyze how users interact with the features of your extensions."

Browser extensions can be a good way to keep customers engaged with your business, and being able to track that will no doubt help tremendously. 

·         Google Analytics Gets New Management API

Google has released a preview of the new Google Analytics Management API, which provides read-only access to Google Analytics configuration data.

"Previously, the API returned all the configuration data at once, which in many cases was inefficient if you only needed a subset of data," says Jeetendra M. Soneja of the Google Analytics API team. "Now with separate feeds, developers can request only the data they need. For example, it's now easy to get the Profile IDs for a single account or the Goal configuration data for only a single Profile."

The new API includes five separate data feeds for accounts, web properties, profiles, goals, and segments.

The API is currently in Google Labs, meaning its subject to bugs. It's just a preview at this point.

"The API will change, grow, and get better over time," says Soneja. "We recommend developers who aren't committed to making updates to their applications only experiment with the new API and continue to use the Account Feed as their primary source for configuration data. We will strive to give you at least one month advanced notice of changes to this API."

There is more info about the API here.

·         Google Analytics Intelligence Gets New Alerts Features

Google has announced the launch of new AdWords Alerts and more options in Custom Alerts in Google Analytics Intelligence.

If a user has their Analytics and AdWords accounts linked, Intelligence will provide important changes in AdWords campaigns performance within Analytics.

"So, in addition to the alerts you are used to getting, such as time on site and revenue, you’ll now receive alerts about your AdWords campaigns and the traffic they are bringing to your website,” Google explains. "You might already be familiar with custom alerts in Google AdWords, which alert you when important changes you specify happen in your account. With AdWords alerts in Analytics Intelligence, you benefit from automatic detection of significant changes, with no extra work for you to configure these yourself."

"For example, you might see an alert if the CTR for one of your campaigns increased unexpectedly," Google adds. "Or you might find that revenue from one of your destination URLs has dropped significantly from the week before. In both cases, you didn’t need to know ahead of time what to look for. These important changes are automatically detected and brought to your attention.

With Custom Alerts, Google has added options in the Alert conditions drop downs, like goals you've configured (with their actual goal names). There are also now e-commerce and AdWords metrics, more traffic sources, and more content page metrics.

·         Google Analytics Book Earns Company's Endorsement

If you're interested in marketing and Google Analytics, and have $27 and the time to read 450 pages to spare, Google thinks it knows of just the right book for you.  Yesterday evening, the search giant took the rather unusual step of endorsing a privately-authored paperback called Performance Marketing with Google Analytics.

Again, the book wasn't put out by Google or even any current employees.  Instead, it was written by Sebastian Tonkin, who used to work for the company, Caleb Whitmore, the founder of Analytics Pros, and Justin Cutroni, the director of digital intelligence at WebShare.

But the book impressed Avinash Kaushik, Google's analytics evangelist, to the point that he was willing to write a foreword, and on the Google Analytics Blog, a post stated late yesterday, "A new book by a stellar team is now available for you to take your usage of Google Analytics to the next level."

Specifically, topics that the book addresses include AdWords, customer loyalty, online strategy, and ROI.  Plus email, offline, SEO, and social media campaigns, along with winning market share from competitors.

Anyway, the Google blog post pointed out that you can get the book on Amazon if you like, or read a little more about it on the official site.

·         Google Unveils Analytics-Blocking Add-On

People who are interested in evading Google Analytics can now easily do so thanks to Google itself.  This afternoon, the company released a beta version of the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, and there's a new option for site owners who feel protective of their visitors, too.

These are significant steps on Google's part.  On the one hand, they're sure to please privacy advocates.  On the other, the browser add-on move in particular may upset site owners concerned about revenue streams.  Feel free to voice your opinion in the comments section below.

Let's move on to more concrete details for now, though.  Amy Chang, Director of Product Development for Google Analytics, explained on the Google Analytics Blog, "The opt-out provides users with a choice of whether information about website visits is collected by Google Analytics.  The add-on stops data from being sent from your computer when you visit websites that use Google Analytics Javascript (ga.js) to track usage."

As for the second change, Chang wrote, "[W]e're also releasing new functionality for website owners to provide an additional level of privacy for visitors to their sites by offering an option to anonymize IP address information sent to Google.  Google Analytics uses the IP address of website visitors to provide general geographic reporting.  Website owners can now choose to have Google Analytics store and use only a portion of this IP address for geographic reports."

It should be very interesting to see how many people take advantage of these new options.

Google has launched the Google Analytics App Gallery, which includes 32 apps so far.

"All Google Analytics customers have access to a worldwide network of Google Certified Partners (formerly known as Google Analytics Authorized Consultants)," says Trevor Claiborne of the Google Analytics Team. "And now the ecosystem is growing further with developers who are creating a variety of applications on the Google Analytics platform."

Among the apps in the gallery are ones that let you work with analytics data in an Excel spreadsheet, and one that automatically implements Google Analytics across a WordPress site.

Developers can find more information here about how to publish apps in the gallery.

Google also announced it will be making a new set of AdWords reports available in Google Analytics over the coming weeks.

"These reports expand significantly on the AdWords reports you currently see in your account," says Claiborne. "For example, you can break out your AdWords traffic by actual search query, match type, distribution network, and many other AdWords attributes. We’ve added reports for day parting, placements, and destination URLs."

Developers can access AdWords info with the Google Analytics APIs, which Google says makes it much easier to combine AdWords and Analytics data for analysis and automation.

In addition to these announcements, AdWords Search Funnels are now available for all AdWords accounts.

 ·         Google Changes Analytics Authorized Consultant Program

Last week Google changed its Google Advertising Professionals (GAP) program to the Google AdWords Certification program, and introduced a new badge for AdWords Certified Partners. Now Google is making a similar change with its Analytics Authorized Consultant program.

Partners in the program are now being called Google Analytics Certified Partners, and also have a new badge that looks very much like the one AdWords partners get. The company says it's part of an effort to produce consistent naming and badging for all Google product partner programs.

Analytics Authorized Consultant benefits include (I assume this doen't change outside of the naming):

§         The "Google Analytics Authorized Consultant" logo and designation

§         Possible client referrals from Google sales teams

§         Elevated technical support for Google Analytics

§         Listing on the Google Analytics Partner page

§         Invitation to attend annual GAAC summit at Google offices

§         Access to exclusive GAAC web forum to share ideas and technical tips with Google and other GAACs

"If you are looking for help with your Google Analytics account, look for companies that display this Google Analytics Certified Partners logo," says Eva Woo of Google's Analytics Team. "Companies displaying this logo have met our rigorous requirements demonstrating a level of expertise, agreed to our terms and conditions, and have proven experience to work with you."

"Yes, we’ve made them jump through hoops because it’s important that we vet the best to service you," adds Woo. "We don’t take it lightly because optimizing your Google Analytics account is serious business. So, whether it’s a quick consultation, help with an implementation or tracking a campaign, or long term support or training - look for companies that display the new logo."

Google lists the its certified partners here.
 

·         Google Analytics, Chromium Receive Language Upgrades

The folks in charge of science fiction movies that are currently in development may, for the sake of accuracy, want to feature Google's name on any universal translators.  The company's continued to move forward in its work with languages by tweaking Google Analytics and a build of Chromium.

Let's first talk about what might be viewed as a finished product.  Late last week, Google Analytics became available in six more languages (Bulgarian, Catalan, Greek, Lithuanian, Slovak, and Vietnamese), and this should, of course, allow many more people to become users (and maybe first-time advertisers).

The ramifications of the other development are a little harder to pin down.  Lee Mathews reported this morning, "You can now enable auto-translation of pages in Chromium.  Just add the --auto-translate switch to your Chromium shortcut and head over to a foreign language web page to test it out.  A Google Translate bar will appear, and you can then click the button to convert all text on the page."

It's hard to say for sure if Chrome will get this feature, and almost impossible to make a guess about the timeframe of any implementation.

Still, Google's continuing to show a definite interest in letting all sorts of people use its products for the sake of learning about all sorts of things.

·         Google Analytics Annotations Now Available to All

Update: Google has announced that annotations are now available for all accounts after a phased roll-out.

Original Articles: Google announced a new set of features for Google Analytics at SES Chicago. New features include annotations, custom variables in advanced segments, custom variables in custom reports, a new analytics tracking code setup wizard, and a new version of the analytics API.

The Annotations feature lets any user with access to a Google Analytics profile leave shared or private notes on the "over-time" graph. The idea is that staff can note certain spikes and dips in traffic that may be hard to explain when looking at the broad picture. For example, if the servers went down, a new campaign launched, when a redesign went live, etc. It's just a way of keeping things organized and accounted for.

"Building upon the concept of bringing Intelligence to data, Annotations complements existing anomaly detection by capturing the tribal intelligence of your company, which tends to be the most expensive and easily lost resource of all," the Google Analtyics team says. "A simple note from a colleague can save hours of real work (and frustration) for an analyst who is tasked to explain a usually dry set of numbers. This short video will show you how to use Annotations."

Back in October, Google announced Multiple Custom Variables. Until now, the only way to view metrics on them was to open the "Custom Variables" report in the Visitors section. Now, you can create an advanced segmentation based on any key, value, or key-value combination of all custom variables.

"In other words, if you've created a Custom Variable such as 'Logged In Member', you can also create an advanced segment based on that variable and see it across all of your reports," says Google.

Custom Reports can also be created with any of the key or value dimensions assocated with any custom variable. You can see how a segment defined by custom variables behaves along any of the metrics available in Google Analytics.

The new tracking code set-up wizard automatically generates tracking code according to the setup options you specify.

Finally, the new Analytics API will feature support for advanced segmentation, and will include access to new data dimensions and metrics, including those in Google's other recently announced features for Analytics. Google says there will be a separate announcement for the API later this week, so expect to find out more about what it has to offer soon.
 

·         Google Analytics API Gets New Features

Google has launched some new features for the Google Analytics API. These include support for advanced segments and 48 new metrics around goal performance, as well as goal configuration data.

"With advanced segmentation, you can look beyond your aggregated data and peer into the nuances of traffic and visitor activity on your site," says Nick Mihailovski of the Google Analytics API Team. "For example, the average time on site for all visits could be 60 seconds, but when you segment by country, you might learn that average time on site of visits from Germany is over 2 minutes."

Google has added two new ways to use advanced segments through the API including creating them on the fly by specifying their expression directly through an API query and using advanced segments created in the Google Analytics web interface through the API.

The following video shows how to work with goal configuration data in the API.

Google has also added 10 new dimensions to access custom variable data and each one that is used is available through the account feed.

Google has updated all of its documentation for the API, and is encouraging the continued feedback of users.

·         Google Integrates AdSense For Feeds, FeedBurner, Analytics

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.

·         Google Launches Analytics for Mobile Apps

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.

·         Google Website Optimizer Gets an API

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.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

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

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

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

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."

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

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.

·         More Advertisers Invited To Use Yahoo Web Analytics

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

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

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:

·         Google Making Changes to Search Referrals

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

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.