Google Analytics- *yawn*
Maybe I’m just not a stats kinda girl. I just can’t see what all the damn fuss is about.
A friend let me peek at his Google Analytics so I could see what was what. He’s the kinda guy who crunches numbers like they were fresh roasted pistachio nuts, and he loves the dang thing. I’m underwhelmed.
A huge chunk of this info is already in my stats programs that I get through my webhost, it just isn’t in bloated flash format with Google’s name on it. So what’s the fuss about? I just don’t see why people are giving away their webstats info to google for this . . .
November 18th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Heh. Ditto….
All it does is make the wordpress.org support forum take twice as long to load…. of course we have to remember that I’m on 30 year old analog phone line dialup….
November 19th, 2005 at 11:34 am
First, a point we agree on: Google Analytics isn’t yet all it can be. It needs a way to filter out self hits (every small business owner I know does this) and it needs to be able to track users across multiple domains (I operate half a dozen or so and like to see how users move back and forth).
But I will disagree with you that there’s nothing to fuss about. Most small business sites, for example, fail to establish any meaningful goals for their site (other than “make money”), and the goal tool is really sweet. The idea of being able to track goal funnels is really cool–cool because its useful.
I haven’t replaced any of my own tracking with it yet–I’m running dual systems for right now–but I do like the direction their going.
Cheers
November 19th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
Oh yes, self hits . . . I use my OWN WebGeek Resources since it’s easier to find stuff there than in my messy I-never-organize-’em bookmarks, so approximately 5% of the traffic in the CSS section is ME.
I’m first and foremost a design person. It’s not to say that I don’t at all pay attention to any of my stats, but I’ve found that for me at least it’s more effective to focus on what information is really going to allow me to create a better site. Shawn said he could use the GA to do that, but I saw nothing there that stood out for me as a means to that end. When I look at my own stats, the most USEFUL section to me is the keywords and phrases people are using to find me. Those stats give me incredibly useful info that I can use in a meaningful way to optimize and convert my traffic to paying customers.
I guess it’s all in how you look at the world and the http://WWW. What works for one person may not be a big deal to someone else. I still say Google Analytics has nothing much to offer me. I, on the other hand, seem to have something Google wants- my website information. The trade-off is not worth it.
November 21st, 2005 at 10:39 pm
Um. Reid said: “self hits (every small business owner I know does this)”….
Obviously you do NOT KNOW ME, because I do NOT do this.
As to goals, not a problem. We real businesspersons have real business plans.