Google Analytics

[pnyberg]

I just noticed this board.  Is it new, or have I been blind? 

I put up a new website for my fledgling portable sawmill business a few weeks ago.  Since I didn't know about this board, I wrote about it on the sawmill board.  It's all water under the bridge now, and there's no need to rehash that story.

But, I did want to pass on a tool that I've found just in the last few days that tells me more than I would have thought possible about how my website is being accessed.  The tool is Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/).  It's pretty amazing, and it's free.

To use Google Analytics you need to have a Google account, and you need to paste some javascript into each page of your website.  Once you've done this, Google will begin to capture information about each visit your website receives. 

Within a few days, you'll be able to view reports about traffic on your website.  Not just the number of visitors and the number of unique visitors, but details like the average number of pages viewed per visitor, how they got to your site, the time spent on your site, and the geographic location of your visitors, down to the level of city or town.

I'm not sure how useful all this data is, but I'm finding it pretty interesting.

Good luck with your website,

    --Peter

[Samuel]

I have this attached to my personal business as well as the company I work for.  It is amazing where traffic comes from.

[lgt]

I am a new sponsor to The forestry Forum.  As I was telling Jeff during my "interview"  I like PIWIK.  It is free and is hosted on your own web server.  It provides a little different view.  I use Google, but I've become slightly addicted to watching the real time-live users hit each web page.  I like watching where they come from and trying to predict who is actually going to buy something.

[SwampDonkey]

I block it. :D

[Radar67]

I block it as well.

[Shotgun]

I block it too. (or three)   

Norm

[scsmith42]

I'm curious - why do y'all block the information?

[Shotgun]

I'm curious - why do y'all block the information?

If you can block it, why not?  I block everything that I can. 

Norm

[Radar67]

It falls back to privacy and tracking for me. They set a cookie on your machine and track where you go and come from. If I wanted you to know that, I would tell you. As a computer security person, I block everything, advertising, third party cookies, scripts, everything. I decide what gets to be placed on my computer.

[SwampDonkey]

Like Norm said. Nothing against anyone's site per se, but you guys have no control over Google and what they do. ;)

[scsmith42]

I can understand the desire for privacy and blocking cookies (I do the same thing), but I thought that the analytical program tracked where other folks came to your site from, not your specific computer.

Am I missing something? (probably am....)

[Ianab]

Yes it does that, but do get meaningful info it tracks the folks that are doing the clinking as well.

If you prefer not to give google that info then the info it provides is a bit less complete...

Reminds me of the scene from Blade Runner where Harrison Ford (Decker) walks though a lobby and the adverts on the wall address him by name and display adverts to suit his "profile"....

That's the ultimate aim of the tracking software...

Ian

[Warbird]

It falls back to privacy and tracking for me. They set a cookie on your machine and track where you go and come from. If I wanted you to know that, I would tell you. As a computer security person, I block everything, advertising, third party cookies, scripts, everything. I decide what gets to be placed on my computer.

I'm with you, Radar.  There are a couple of pieces of software I use in FF, as well as specific settings, that work pretty well for this.