With the ever increasing number of websites appearing online that create revenue from ad space, and the spike in software programs available that offer to track and analyze your web traffic, Google Analytics is the easy to use, and free option that is definitely worth a look. In fact, it is currently the most popular web analytics tool used according to Wikipedia, and is used by some of the most successful websites around to keep track of their online presence.
While Google Analytics has been around for a few years, its success essentially lies in its use of fairly simple technology to accomplish the task. Primarily it uses java script, time-stamped cookies, and an implementation code called ga.js. This allows the data to be collected and tracked, as well as analysed.
One of the benefits of Google Analytics is that there are multiple ways to analyze your data. It offers reports that are customizable depending on the type of data you want to know, and how you want it displayed. It is also very functional with other types of software that you may already be using, or that are part of your web host’s control panel; a feature not often found with free analytics tools. Another feature that makes this an excellent free web traffic tracking option is its ability to not only track direct web traffic, but related traffic, such as hits from social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, as well as through multimedia searches for your site’s images and videos, and even more importantly, search engine hit results.
Another great feature of Google Analytics is both the free and paid support options they offer to help maximize your web traffic. Their site has an extensive Help Centre that contains numerous articles and blogs from industry and Google experts that help you use the product. They also have an active User’s Forum where many question you may have can easily, and quickly be answered. They also offer email and telephone support if needed; a rare service in the world of free online business. If you require more professional, or intensive help in analyzing your web traffic data, or with your search engine optimization and web marketing strategies, Google Analytics also offers paid services from authorized consultants.
Google Analytics does offer a great product and service; however, there are a few limitations that should be kept in mind, especially if it will be used as your only web analytics tool. Google Analytics can often be easily blocked by privacy software that block or deletes tracking cookies. This however, is the major issue with most tracking software available, and it certainly does not affect the overall rating of this web analytics tool in general. Overall, Google Analytics is a highly useful tool that all webmasters and web marketing professionals should seriously consider.
