Friday, November 18, 2005
Analyzing Google Analytics
Recently, Google released a new feature called "Analytics." From thier new Analytics homepage;
Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. You'll be able to focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.
For a technical guy like me, it begs the question, how? Without reading any further I'm assuming that webmasters would insert some HTML code that allows this new Analytics application to sense when someone accesses the website. It could be a JavaScript or a simple image placed on the page that is counted by Google. Let's see if I was right;
Simply paste the Google Analytics tracking code into each of your website pages and tracking begins immediately. No purchase process. No need to download anything. If you don't edit your own site, your webmaster, designer, or hosting provider can probably do it for you in under five minutes.
Under five minutes? For each page depending on the site design. Less than that on the sites I build though because I design for quick global changes. But I digress.
So, they are wanting webmasters to put a JavaScript file that is hosted on their servers onto every page of the domain. Interesting. Ever wonder what kind of information they can obtain? All kinds. Like, IP address, that is tied into your Internet Service Providers data which most times can tell what region of the country/world you are coming from. They can usually tell where you came from and where you went through referrers and link tracking. If they employ domain cookies, they now have the ability to set a cookie on your computer for each and every domain name you visit.
I remember a few short years ago, many people were screaming about the use of cookies and the invasion of privacy they could produce. Browser software was written to prevent "cross domain" cookies and scripts. This new Google tool potentially offers a means of circumventing these controls. There are some safety measures like offsite image controls and JavaScript blocking. I would guess that most people are not using those controls because it adversely affects their browsing experience. It's interesting how a little time will climatize people to the point of complacency.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some kind of conspiracy theorist or doomsayer, but I have found it interesting how few comments I have read/heard concerning the potential for abuse.
From a business standpoint, I will not be using the new free service. I protect my customers the best I can and part of that is to protect their business interests. I do not feel it is in the best interest of a business owner to allow another entity the ability to track, log and analyze the traffic patterns of their website. I don't think it is in the best interest of the business to allow the private usage information of their shoppers/visitors to be harvested and used in ways that are not in the control of the business owners. But hey, that's just my opinion.
From a big picture kind of economic standpoint, I think that allowing Google the ability to monitor the entire internet with live stats is a mistake. It's not just "Google" but any entity. (If Microsoft was offering this service, I wonder how loud the din of discontent would be.) To allow one corporation the ability to monitor a good percentage of the internet in real time give that entity an unfair advantage in my opinion. It could allow them to spot trends immediately, to build algorithms that would spot market potentials and even gather "inside information" about investments simply through monitoring the usage metrics. (I say could because I don't know that it is intended or even possible.)
If I were to make a prediction, I would say that this new tool will be embraced for the most part but in a few short months, it will be removed because of "bad press." That's just me, my opinion and my observations.
Reference: http://www.google.com/analytics/
