Google Analytics
I just discovered Google Analytics, a free tool that let’s you track and analyze web site traffic.
It has all kinds of reports with charts and graphs. It’ll tell you what brower the visiter was using, the operating system, the screen resolution. It tells you how the user found the site and what search words they used — if they used a search site.
There are a few things that are lacking — which I’ll mention but only after repeating that this is a free service. First, there’s no API. It would be great if you could query the data directly, but on the other hand Google makes much of the data available in XML format, so it’s not as though the capability isn’t there. The second is that the data is only updated every twenty-four hours. This is fine actually, but waiting for a new batch can be pretty tough — especially at first. This the first time that I’ve really wished that my site got more traffic. It’s a bit disappointing to wait a day and then discover that you’ve got only two visitors in that time.
It’s really slick. But by far the most fun part is the maps. It’s really cool to know where requests come from geographically. And, if there is an advantage to having a rarely visited site, it’s that I know where most of these requests are coming from. The data shows that it’s mostly friends and family — mostly “direct” traffic, as Google puts it. Then there’s a few visitors that find the site through Google or Yahoo. They’re usually using searchwords specific to Denmark like dansk folkparti or grundtvig. There was also a user searching for pacifier trees, which I’m almost certain is the mother of a friend of mine who recently asked me if her mother could use my pictures.
According to Wikipedia, when Google Analytics was rolled out, demand was too high, and Google had to suspend registrations. Later they went to a “lottery” system, but today apparently it’s openly available. I certainly had no trouble signing up.
Setting up Google Analytics to track a Wordpress blog couldn’t be easier, thanks to this plug-in. You just sign up with Google Analytics, install the plug-in, and enter the script Google provides into the plug-in. If you want to track a traditional static HTML site, then you have to add the script to every page.