Google Analytics

Justin Cutroni

Copyright © 2007 O'Reilly Media, Inc.

September 11, 2007

Abstract

Web analytics is the process of measuring your web site, analyzing the data, and making changes based on the analysis. Many businesses are just starting to learn how they can increase the performance of their web site by using web analytics. For many people, their first exposure to web analytics is Google Analytics, a free tool available to everyone.

Although analysis is vital to web analytics, you can't do analysis without good data. Configuring Google Analytics correctly is the key to collecting good data.

This Short Cut provides a thorough description of how the Google Analytics system works, information about many different types of implementations, and ways to avoid common pitfalls. It also shares some best practices to get your setup correct the first time.

Getting Setup Correct

I wrote this Short Cut for one primary reason: to help you configure Google Analytics correctly. If it's not configured correctly, then you may have incorrect data, leading to incorrect analysis. In my experience, getting Google Analytics configured correctly is the biggest roadblock to using it effectively.

Throughout the Short Cut, I try to explain how Google Analytics works so you can understand the impact of various configuration choices. Remember, Google Analytics is used to analyze business data, which means ...