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20 items tagged "Tracking"

Related tags: Web [+], Analytics [+], Measurements [+], Conversion [+]

Search Engine Roundtable

• 

  Real Time Google Analytics

  Fetched: October 3rd, 2011, 6:04pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Web Analytics Tracking  

  Thursday, while I was offline again, Google announced a cool new feature to Google Analytics to show real time statistics.

  Google launched "Google Analytics Real-Time: a set of new reports that show what's happening on your site as it happens." Here is a screen shot:

  Some of you may see this feature now, for those that don't - you can sign up to get access to it early over here. Until then, be on the lookout for it.

  How real time are these real time reports? People are saying about 3-4 hour delay. So that does not seem all that real time to me, does it?

  They also launched Google Analytics Premium for more services and support at a cost.

  Forum discussion at Google Analytics Help, DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Google Analytics Session Bug Fixed

  Fetched: August 18th, 2011, 7:25pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Web Analytics Tracking  

  Earlier this week, Google announced they have changed how they define sessions in Google Analytics.

  That change should have only impacted about 1% or less of the traffic reports. But webmasters and marketers were noticing major changes and felt something was wrong. Guess what, there was something wrong.

  Last night, Google updated their blog post explaining the issue and said it is being fixed now. Google said:

  We identified an issue responsible for unexpected traffic changes following our recent update to how sessions are defined in Google Analytics. A fix was released at 2pm PST Tuesday August 16th.

  The issue affected some sites using the following configurations:

  1. If a user comes to a customerâs site with a space in some part of their traffic source data, then revisit the same landing page during that session by refreshing the page or later pressing the back button, a new session will be created for every hit to that page. (Clicking a link elsewhere on the site that leads back to the page should not matter.)

  2. Google Analytics implementations using multiple trackers (an unsupported configuration) are also affected when a space is included in the traffic source data. These sites will see fewer visits from new visitors, and more visits from returning visitors (with some variation due to different implementations).

  Again, a fix for this issue was released yesterday. Please let us know if you continue to see unexpected traffic changes. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support.

  Good to see Google was able to resolve this pretty quickly.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Google Analytics Traffic Change? Here Is Why.

  Fetched: August 17th, 2011, 10:15am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Web Analytics Tracking  

  Last Thursday, Google announced how they have made a change to how they define a session.

  Before Thursday Google Analytics ends a session when:

  • More than 30 minutes have elapsed between pageviews for a single visitor.
  • At the end of a day.
  • When a visitor closes their browser.

  Now, Google Analytics ends a session when:

  • More than 30 minutes have elapsed between pageviews for a single visitor.
  • At the end of a day.
  • When any traffic source value for the user changes. Traffic source information includes: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_term, utm_content, utm_id, utm_campaign, and gclid.

  So what impact is this having on your traffic reports in Google Analytics? It has been enough time to see the complaints in the threads.

  But first, look at the comments in the post:

  Confirming what others have stated: This change is wreaking havoc on our data. It looks like non-paid search traffic is up 30%, but corresponding pageviews are down 30%. And all gains in traffic are Repeat Visits -- which would suggest the second pageview from a paid source (utm_xxxxx=yyyyy) is creating a new session, and dumping the visit data into the wrong channel.

  Good Grief, less then a 1% change! "Based on our research" I would love to know how you conducted this research.

  I am seeing 20% increase in visits, I though I had finally broken free of Panda!

  How I am supposed to evaluate these new metrics on steroids vs my previous metrics?

  Today vs Yesterday Visits (+19.59%) Pages/Visit (-17.66%) Bounce Rate (+13.80%) Avg. Time on Site (-22.62%) % New Visits (-18.03%)

  Same here, since this "update", organic traffic has so-said doubled and my Adwords traffic is now around twice as high as the number of clicks on adwords which can only be wrong.

  There are also complaints in the WebmasterWorld forums and at Sphinn.

  Are you upset? Did it make significant changes to your reports?

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Google Webmaster Tools With +1 Data

  Fetched: July 1st, 2011, 7:33am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Web Analytics Tracking  

  The Google Webmaster Tools announced you can now get +1 metrics directly in your Google Webmaster Tools account.

  Currently it only works with +1s and shows you three reports, they include:

  • The Search Impact report gives you an idea of how +1's affect your organic search traffic. You can find out if your clickthrough rate changes when personalized recommendations help your content stand out. Do this by comparing clicks and impressions on search results with and without +1 annotations. Google will only show statistics on clickthrough rate changes when you have enough impressions for a meaningful comparison.
  • The Activity report shows you how many times your pages have been +1'd, from buttons both on your site and on other pages (such as Google search).
  • Finally, the Audience report shows you aggregate geographic and demographic information about the Google users who've +1'd your pages. To protect privacy, Google will only show audience information when a significant number of users have +1'd pages from your site.

  Here is a screen shot:

  For more details on these reports, see Google's help section.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & DigitalPoint Forums.

  
  

• 

  See Google Analytics Social Tracking Enabled

  Fetched: July 1st, 2011, 7:33am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Web Analytics Tracking  

  Last night, Google Analytics and crew announced the feature of tracking social interactions within Google Analytics. The new feature lets you track people who socially engage in your content, from +1s to Facebook Likes, to commenting and Tweeting the content.

  Google adds a new option to the new Google Analytics interface for "social" under the Visitors menu. The features include:

  • The Social Engagement report lets you see how site behavior changes for visits that include clicks on +1 buttons or other social actions. This allows you to determine, for example, whether people who +1 your pages during a visit are likely to spend more time on your site than people who don't.
  • The Social Actions report lets you track the number of social actions (+1 clicks, Tweets, etc) taken on your site, all in one place.
  • The Social Pages report allows you to compare the pages on your site to see which are driving the highest the number of social actions.

  I enabled it late last night and this morning some of the late traffic to this site showed up with social metrics. You can see some Facebook like tracking and I even enabled "commenting" as a social interaction.

  Social Engagements Overall:

  Social Actions:

  Social Pages:

  Honestly, I can't wait to see the data after a full day of tracking.

  How do you do this? There are instructions for Google +1 here and for other social tracking here.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

  
  

• 

  Search Query Reports Directly In Google Analytics

  Fetched: June 8th, 2011, 8:04pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Web Analytics Tracking  

  Google announced you can now request to be part of a pilot to add the search engine optimization reports to your Google Analytics reports. Yes, indeed!

  We expected deeper integration and only a few months after, we are getting it! The search query reports within Google Webmaster Tools is passing through to Google Analytics.

  After you gain access to this data in Google Analytics (again, pilot only), you will see a new menu for "search engine optimization" under the Traffic Sources section.

  Then you get access to Search Query data and landing page reports. That includes impressions, rankings, clicks and click-through rates directly from the search engines. You get it by search query and by landing page. Very useful data. Here is a chart:

  Plus, you can use the advanced reports to meld deeper insight into your site by taking this data and applying it elsewhere.

  Pretty cool, no?

  Request to be in the pilot today.

  Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

  Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.

  
  

• 

  New Google Analytics V5 Now Available To Everyone

  Fetched: April 24th, 2011, 10:27am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Web Analytics Tracking  

  The Google Analytics Blog announced that the new version of Google Analytics: Version 5 is now available to everyone.

  To see it for yourself, sign into Google Analytics and at the top click on the red "New Version" link. Don't worry, you can currently toggle back and forth between the old and new version.

  We have many more details on this new version over here.

  Here is a list of new features:

  • A redesigned Google Analytics platform to enable major new functionality
  • A streamlined interface to make it easier to get to the information you want
  • Improved report performance for faster reports
  • A completely redesigned, faster interface (read more).
  • Multiple dashboardsâ"build a custom dashboard for each department (read more).
  • Event Goals! Track your PDF downloads as goals with events, or configure 2 minutes play time on a video as a goal. Read Kayden's great blog post on this feature.
  • More powerful custom reportsâ"you can pre-filter reports and build additional data views (read more).
  • New Term Cloud visualization.

  Features coming soon include Exporting reports to PDF, Emailing reports, Migrating a custom report from the current Analytics version to the new version, Linking a new AdWords or AdSense account and In-Page Analytics.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn and Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

  
  

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  Non Google Analytics Admins Can't Remove Profiles

  Fetched: March 31st, 2011, 2:26am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Web Analytics Tracking  

  Let's say you are an SEO, webmaster or marketing consultant for a third-party company. That company grants you user access to their Google Analytics data so that you can analyze their traffic and find areas in which you can improve their site. Then one day, you no longer work for that client but they did not remove your access to their Analytics.

  Did you know that the only way to remove Google Analytics profiles is for an administrator to either delete the profile completely or remove your access individually? What if they don't? Then you have profiles in your account you no longer want or need.

  For some, that can be frustrating and a bit of annoyance. Personally, it wouldn't bother me because I search for profiles but hey - I can see it being annoying for some.

  A Google Analytics Help thread from 2009 still has people who are upset.

  Heck, even the new interface doesn't give you a way to do it.

  Admins can remove profiles:

  Users can't remove profiles:

  New Profile Pages:

  Forum discussion at Google Analytics Help.

  
  

• 

  Google Analytics Suffering Data Outage : November 2, 2010

  Posted: November 3rd, 2010, 1:20pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  If you attempt to check your traffic today, November 3rd, for yesterday's data, November 2nd - you will be surprised to see that you have had no traffic to your site.

  There is a wide spread bug or delay in the Google Analytics reporting tool.

  There are dozens of reports of this bug at the Google Analytics Forum, and threads at WebmasterWorld and Google Blogoscoped Forums, amongst others.

  Here is a picture of my report for this site:

  There is no word from Google yet on the issue, but I am sure they will fix it by tomorrow.

  Forum discussion at Google Analytics Forum, WebmasterWorld and Google Blogoscoped Forums.

  Update: Within 30 minutes of writing this, Google has fixed the issue. We all know should see data in our analytics account.

  
  

• 

  New Beta FeedBurner Dashboard

  Posted: October 26th, 2010, 3:56pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  Ever since Google bought FeedBurner I, and many others, have felt FeedBurner, as a service, has been slowly dying. Google proved us wrong yesterday when they announced a new beta version of the FeedBurner dashboard.

  The new dashboard is hot, kinda looks like Google Analytics and so on.

  Google said "the new interface provides real time stats for clicks, views, and podcast downloads, which means you can start seeing what content is drawing traffic from feed readers, Twitter, and other syndicated sources as it happens."

  The new interface can be accessed at feedburner.google.com/gfb.

  Here are some pictures:

  Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and Google Blogoscoped Forums.

  
  

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  Why Don't Google Webmaster Tools & Google Analytics Match Up?

  Posted: October 21st, 2010, 3:34pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  A common question I see asked in the SEO/SEM forums is why don't the analytics in Google Webmaster Tools, where it says click throughs and the metrics in terms of traffic to your site in Google Analytics match up with each other?

  It is so common that Google's Matt Cutts offered a few reasons in a recent video:

  In short:

  (1) Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics are independent tools and all independent tools are not always exact.

  (2) Google Webmaster Tools tracks actual clicks on your listings, whereas Google Analytics only tracks you if the page loads and the JavaScript code is activated. So if people don't let the code to load, either closes quickly or turns off JavaScript, then it won't count.

  There are some other reasons...

  Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

  
  

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  Study: Searches Ignore Real-Time Search Results

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 2:37pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  OneUpWeb released an eye-tracking study that showed how most searches ignore the real time search results. The takeaways from the study, as Greg Sterling recapped nicely include:

  • 73% had never heard of real-time results before participating this study
  • Only a quarter of the consumers cared for the real-time results compared to 47% of the information foragers
  • The majority of the participants surveyed were indifferent to the real-time results

  The Guardian notes that these real time results cost Google $15m and Bing $10m - what is the return on investment for that then?

  A WebmasterWorld thread has conversation around this where most people say they are not surprised by the study's findings. Just hard to imagine blowing $15 million on something like this.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Google Analytics To Add Bing to Search Engines Report

  Posted: June 2nd, 2009, 3:51pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  Bing launched a couple days early, yesterday morning and Google Analytics users are confused as to why it does not show up in the search engine reports. The day Google released Chrome, their new browser, Google Analytics supported the new browser immediately.

  So why the delay with Bing? Well, Google didn't know exactly what or when it would be coming. It did come a couple days early and now that it is here, Google can begin programming that new search engine into the reports. I doubt Microsoft gave Google an early preview of the search engine and how the search referral strings would work. But now that it is live, Google can begin adding it to Google Analytics.

  A Google Analytics Help thread has confirmation from a Googler, Anna, that this will be working shortly. Anna from the Google Analytics team said:

  Our team is aware of this, and the required action will be taken soon!

  As of this morning, it was not working, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was done shortly.

  Forum discussion at Google Analytics Help.

  
  

• 

  Google Analytics Changes Graph To Show Only Days Selected

  Posted: May 4th, 2009, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  Starting a few days ago, it appears Google Analytics changed the behavior of the display graph based on your date selection criteria. In the past, if you selected a specific date criteria that was less than 30 days, Google would fade out the remainder of the days and highlight the dates you selected. Now, it looks like Google only shows the dates you selected.

  This is a small but very significant change. I personally prefer seeing the whole 30 days on the graph, with Google highlighting that they are only using the days I selected. But not everyone agrees with me on that and Google has changed it to totally remove the unselected days from the graph.

  The picture below shows a few days of traffic from my personal blog. In the past, it would show the full 30 days, and just bold those days I selected, now it just shows those days and hides the rest:

  Do you like the new way Google Analytics handles this? Take our anonymous poll:

  
  Do You Like New or Old Google Analytics Graph?(answers)
  

  Forum discussion at Google Analytics Help.

  
  

• 

  SEOs Excited For Google Analytics API

  Posted: April 24th, 2009, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  Google announced the public availability of the Google Analytics API this week and SEOs are very happy about it.

  SEOs thrive with data and even better SEOs have ways to automatically build software that uses this data to improve their conversions. Dynamically creating new pages based on search query data or A/B testing landing pages based on bounce rates and conversions in an automated fashion, simply makes sense. There are just an incredible amount of opportunity with this new API and SEOs are excited about it.

  To be fair, most SEOs who realized this benefit already built internal systems to handle most of the tracking and dynamic creation of content and landing pages. But maybe Google Analytics gives them new ways to peal away at the data that they haven't had the time or resources to get at as of yet?

  If you have technical questions about the API, you can check out the new Google Analytics API Group. There is a dedicated Googler there to help.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

• 

  Tracking Search Bot Activity

  Posted: April 6th, 2009, 5:08pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  Back in the day, tracking how bots accessed your site was a bit of a crave. Now, you don't hear about it much. The old Google Analytics, aka Urchin, had a section for displaying bot activity on your site. It did this because Urchin also analyzed your log files, in addition to the method Google Analytics uses to track based on JavaScript. Since most spiders don't load JavaScript, popular analytical software, such as Google Analytics, won't track the bot activity.

  To track bot activity, you need to use analytic software that analysis your log files. There are other methods, including writing your own database script to track all bot activity. Back in the day, Darrin Ward (founder of SEO Chat, who sold it years ago) created a script that looked for bot activity and stored the data in a MySQL database. I forgot the name of the software, but I bet it is still out there now or there are plenty of alternatives.

  If you don't want to instal anything but you still want to track bot activity, there are ways.

  In Google Webmaster Tools, you can go to the "Crawl Stats" section under "Statistics" and get data from Google on how active GoogleBot is on your site. Google will show you data and time based graphs for:

  • Number of pages crawled per day
  • Number of kilobytes downloaded per day
  • Time spent downloading a page (in milliseconds)

  Here is a screen shot of our graphs:

  If spiders are not crawling your site, you might have to worry. Otherwise, this is often a metric not discussed often by SEOs.

  Forum discussion at HighRankings Forums.

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  FeedBurner Subscriber Reports Bug: Major Drops In Counts

  Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 3:19pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  FeedBurner is having a reporting failure yet again. I have received at least four emails and several IMs since April 1st from concerned bloggers that their FeedBurner subscribers numbers have dropped. I personally saw this myself, where FeedBurner is reporting only 8,000 or so subscribers to this site, when in fact, we normally have 20,000+.

  The issue? Googler Matt S. confirmed the issue in a Google Groups thread, saying that FeedBurner is having problems retrieving the accurate numbers from Google Feedfetcher. Google notified the Google Feedfetcher team and they hope it is corrected soon. Here is a screen shot showing the huge discrepancy between March 31st and April 2nd, in terms of the numbers reported from Google Feedfetcher, typically people's most popular RSS syndication service. The difference is 9,842 subscribers versus 18 subscribers.

  March 31st:
  

  April 2nd:
  

  Here is Matt's post:

  If you compare individual days (e.g., March 31 vs. April 1) in Analyze > Feed Stats > Subscribers, I'm guessing most of the missing subscribers are from Google Feedfetcher. We've notified that team of the temporary drop in subscribers we're seeing reported by them and will work with them to resolve the issue.

  These issues happen fairly often, so when you see it, don't worry. It is very rare that you would lose 50% of your subscribers overnight, even if you did touch the Queen of England.

  Forum discussion at Google Groups.

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  SEO Focused Log File Analysis

  Posted: March 31st, 2009, 2:52pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  An Introduction to Log File Analysis for SEOs & Webmasters from Eric Lander is a must read for all SEOs out there. He says that if you are not looking at your raw log files, you are missing out on things, even if you have the best web analytics software. Eric goes through the various key metrics in the log files that are key in your log file analysis process.

  A Sphinn thread has extremely positive discussion around the article. I wish I had more time this morning to share my thoughts, but the article is great and the discussion makes it even better.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

• 

  FeedBurner Counts Drop Again, Another Reporting Glitch?

  Posted: January 22nd, 2009, 11:28am CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  Dozens of webmasters are reporting that their FeedBurner subscriber count numbers are dropping like flies, over night. There are dozens of threads on the topic, but the largest one is at Google Groups.

  Some publishers are noticing drops from hundreds of subscribers to just a few subscribers. The biggest anomaly is TechCrunch, which is currently sporting zero subscribers, even Arrington twittered this.

  I am sure this is just a temporary reporting glitch. It wouldn't be the first time. In October 2008 we saw a major reporting glitch and also in August 2008.

  Forum discussion at Google Groups.

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  Is Your Web Site Optimized for Revenue?

  Posted: October 14th, 2008, 8:23pm CEST by cre8pc

  Tags:  Tracking Conversion Measurements  

  Facebook was in the news recently because they hadn't met revenue projections. Why? Their target users are coming to network and "be social" rather than to buy something. Their ad-based revenue plan is missing its mark.

  Another example are spam blogs ("splogs") that steal content from authentic blogs, buy a junk domain, and slap on Google Ads in the hopes of generating revenue. Perhaps some of these nonsense beggar sites do earn a piddly wage, but not to the tune of millions of dollars.

  Are we "banner blind"? Yes. Are you stuck in the "Build it and they will come?" mindset? Are you a print advertiser trying to learn the ways of web marketing?

  Once you begin to sell ads directly all the old offline knowledge sets come into play. Have you studied how best to adapt advertising theory and practice to the web? To your sites? Just as many webdevs instinctively optimise both for users and SEs, and some for ppc, they should also be optimising their ad offerings, their major revenue streams. You've built it, they are actually coming...now sell some drinks and fast food and ad space...

  Cre8asiteforums discusses the topic from all angles in You Optimise For Users And Ses. What about your revenue sources?