About Google Analytics

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Google Analytics (GA) is the result of Google’s acquisition of
Urchin software—a Web analytics company. While at the time of
acquisition, Urchin offered its services for a cost, post-acquisition,
the fees were quickly reduced and finally done away with. As is the
case with a few other Google services, initially, GA was by invita-
tion only, but now anyone can use it for free—as long as there are
less than 50 lakh visitors every month. More popular Web sites
need to sign up for Google AdWords to use GA.
Google’s move into this market is seen as a path-breaking one,
since free access to analytics tools reduced the dependence of Web
sites on firms offering the service. This allowed small and medium
sized businesses to discover for themselves the performance of
their ad campaigns on different parameters, which ultimately
helps them streamline their online marketing practices. Google’s
move to free up GA was probably prompted by the need to increase
the attractiveness of its AdWords programme, which is its lifeline.
By integrating AdWords into GA, Google enabled those who used
AdWords to make improvements to their strategies based on the
data presented by GA. Ad submitters can identify which ads are
more effective, which sites are bringing in the most people, what
words visitors are searching for on the site, and more. Armed with
this information they can fine-tune their online advertising strate-
gies. (It needs to be mentioned here that GA is not limited to track-
ing Google AdWords performance only.)