Google analytics was originally purchased from the Urchin Software Cooperation back in 2005 by Google.com where it was then renamed Google Analytics.
It is now a free service provided by Google.com for website owners to track and measure traffic to and on their websites.
The data measured in the analytics includes…
- How visitors found your site. (traffic Sources)
- The keywords people searched for to find your site in the search engines.
- The location of your visitors. (Country, City and Town)
- The time spent on your site.
- The number of visitors to your site over a day week or monthly period.
- How many pageviews your site has received.
- The average time a visitor spends on your site.
- The percentage of new visits.
- The bounce rate of your site.
Plus a continuous stream of new features that are constantly being added to the Google analytics service.
The information collected by Google analytics can really help you to see and understand what is happening on your site, what pages are more popular than others and what people are looking for when they found your site.
This information is invaluable and can give you an insight as to the type of content you could be adding to your site.
To start using analytics you need to set up an account with Google, my preference for setting up an account is to open a free Gmail account then simply add any additional services (Analytics for example) to that particular Google Gmail account.
But before you can start collecting data with your analytics, you need to add your websites URL to your Google account, Google will then give you some Java Script code to place into your site, it is this code that allows Google to see what is happening on your site.
Google will then track any visitor information and display that information within your Google analytics dashboard.
I have found the data from Google can have a time lag as much as a 24 hour delay, I don’t expect any immediate data to show up before this time has lapsed.
For More Information About Google Analytics Visit The Official Google Analytics Help Page.
