The Google Analytics team posted about some upcoming Announcements on their blog today. New features are coming to Google Analytics including:
- tracking of site search – ‘find out what people search for on your site and where these searches lead’
- Event Tracking capability – reports ‘designed to help you understand how people use and interact with Ajax, Flash and multimedia on your site without artificially increasing your pageview metrics.’
- Outbound Link Tracking – ‘report on links visitors clicked on your site that direct them to another site’
The first one will be available to everyone and the second two will be limited beta tests.
That first one is excellent. Being able to monitor searches should help us to see what people are after, what type of posts are most popular, etc. Nice one!
I think Analytics is the best tool there is to monitor your traffic. I’m always pleased to see when they make advances with it.
That’s awesome. Is this in any way similar to the pro version of mybloglog? It has some tracking features also. Maybe I’m just confused.
I am already using Google Analytics..can’t wait for these new features..google just keeps on getting better.
I thought they already had outgoing link tracking…
Cant wait for the Outbound Link Tracking to be released to all. That would be very handy!
1 and 3 are long overdue. Thanks Gooooogle!!
That’s very interesting!
Especially features 1 and 3, at least you’ll be able to track back were traffic is really at and what drives them into your site.
Any hints as to how to get in on that beta for the outbound click tracking? Been wanting that forEVER! :)
And I’m assuming the site search only works if you are using Google to power your site search?
Google is in a good position to become the stats standard for bloggers if only they would offer something like sitemeter (without information on referrals) that can reveal to readers what the numbers are. Numbers from an independent source would help advertisers.
Well Google seems to be kicking everyone elses bottums eh.
Looking forward to these new features, since I am rather an avid user on Google Analytics ;)
‘Outbound Link Tracking’ has been available in Sitemeter and MyBlogLog for a year now – as well as in other popular trackers
Google analytics rocks.Seems they wanted to kick of others in that field
Like someone else already mentioned, I’ve been able to see what outbound links people click on my site through Google Analytics for a while now.
I first noticed it about two weeks ago, theres no telling how long it was there before I spotted it.
I really like the enhanced search feature, and can’t wait for it! That is a key area that has been missing, at least for my sites, as it will help me to redefine my site layouts, and content to make it easier for people to find what they are looking for.
All the three are good additions to the already great Analytics. I hope I can be one of the Beta testers though.
Many wanted to go against Google to protest against their domination on the Internet but I find myself relying too much on them. :-P
Best of all it has my favorite 4 letter word…FREE!!!
Google Rules!!!
Clicks is a great feature.
Event tracking and Outbound traking were availible before but you need to use special code inside flash files and javascript on page to assign all outbound links to trigger action for taking record of it. you can use jquery to do this automaticly on page load. I have been using it for couple month now.
reference to track outbound links:
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=27246
Great job on their part. I have to say that Google Analytics has proven to be an invaluable tool for me. I’m a total beginner at this and I don’t intend on becoming an expert since my little health and fitness blog is just a hobby. Google analytics is free, easy to set up and easy to use, which makes it perfect for people like me. Glad to see some of you power users also like it.
Gal
I find the amount of analytics provided by Google serve only to ‘overwhelm’ most of the time.
How DO you all find the time to use them all?
Just a thought,
Pete.
Wow – outgoing link tracking!! Maybe I need to finally log-in and starting using my GA account.
Google Analytics is great and I’m happy they are making it even more effective. Thanks for the update….
We already track our outbound links using Analytics. Of course, you have to manually code it, so it is more work…
traffic analyzing is vital for any webmaster
and the good news is the google tool is free
Outbound Link Tracking’ has been available in Sitemeter and MyBlogLog for a year now – as well as in other popular trackers