T11M

I’m addicted to Google Analytics.  I check the statistics for the three websites I manage daily.  I’m constantly watching to see what kind of traffic the sites are generating, what pages people are viewing most, how long they are spending on the site, and many more statistics.  So if you are still trying to decide what web statistics service to use, I highly recommend Google Analytics (GA). 

Set up for GA is pretty simple.  Simply go to the GA home page and follow the steps.  You will be required to embed a small amount of Javascript code on each of your web pages that will make the connection between your site and GA allowing it to track youru site’s activity.  So obviously root access to your sites content and a template file that places the code on all of your pages is necessary.  Or for those sites built on the major content management systems (Drupal, WordPress, etc.) modules/plugins are available to do all of the work for you.  This blog is built on the WordPress CMS and I use the Google Analyticator plugin.  In the Drupal websites I have done I always add the Google Analytics module.  Configuration of these modules/plugins is very straightforward and I have not seen an increase in page load time.

I think my favorite part of GA is the main dashboard.  Not only is it completely customizeable, but it allows you to quickly view all of the key analytics information you want.  I find myself going in once a day and glancing at the dashboard for each of my three sites, instantly getting all of the information I care about, and then leaving.  If I want more in-depth information I can dig deeper but 90% of the time I am simply appeasing my curiousity with a visit to GA. 

So far I haven’t found any real downsides.  If you manage a site that is full of static pages and does not use templates then I guess you could be in for some very boring code adding.  However, modern web design best practices use some form of template or CMS which makes tapping into the functionality of GA simple.