After 48 hours – my Google Analytics stats look like they are finally coming to life with some actual information.
It might be time for me to go do some Analysis…
About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Same here. In addition, they captured all data from the time I implemented the code so even though it wasn’t working for the last 2 days, it is now.
My big revelation from Google Analytics was how much traffic (almost 50%) was generated from me posting on other message boards and other blogs. I was always worried that I was “giving my content away for free” by posting more on other people’s blogs than my own, but it seems there is some utility in making your name known.
My one question though is I got some traffic from googleblog.blogspot.com (the Official Google Blog), but I know that my tiny site wouldn’t even be referenced anywhere there. I was wondering if this should actually be referrals from Google’s Blog Search tool.
It appears to be working faster than when it was just paying customers. All that complaining for nothing–beats paying $2500 a year… That would be $1250 a day for each of the days it was shotty.
“I got some traffic from googleblog.blogspot.com (the Official Google Blog)”
Sure it’s not a link from comments or trackbacks?
It kinda overloaded me. It’s all so…….so much… :D
No doubt, it will take some getting used to, but any invisible tracker is in my good books, especially one from Google. All that complaining for nothing for real. Give Google a chance let them work out the kinks before we jump down their throats is all I’m saying.
I like the fact that it’s all done with AJAX. Makes things feel more fluid.
[…] Además de esto, parece ser que, tras ciertos problemas con las estadísticas y servidores, a algunos ya les empiezan a salir datos (48 horas después, claro). […]
“giving my content away for free”
My philosophy is to post what I think I know to my stuff, and what I’m not so sure about to other blogs. Sometimes I post what I don’t know to my stuff, but try to play it off like I know. You know?
Almost as confusing as Analytics.
If you’re still seeing the “Your first reports will be ready within twelve hours.” message, try clicking on the “View Reports” link nonetheless. It should work.
[…] Naja, mittlerweile sind gut 40 Stunden vergangen, und Google sammlet immernoch meine Daten für die erste Auswertung, aber ich habe noch Hoffnung, denn Darren auf Problogger.net, erhielt auch erst nach 48h seine erste Bestätigung. […]
My first reaction was shock: how the heck could only 5% be returning visitors? Then I realized that I was only seeing a little more than a day’s worth of data and I calmed down.
There’s almost no point in looking at all this stuff now. It familiarizes you with the reports, but until Google has swallowed a lot more page views, it’s not telling you much of value.
I was surprised to see it working this morning. It looks like a lot of data to digest. It does look good though.
[…] Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.com has also experienced some major delays with stats getting reported. However, after 48 hours the stats started to roll in. […]
I was impressed to see Google Analytics the other day. What struck me was the similarity to HitWise, and other tools of the ilk. I’d like to see more geo-location data, integrated with the visitor heuristics you’d get with some of the ‘pay’ tools out there.
Congratulations to Google on another fantastic tool!
Granted, I’m just starting out with my blog and not sure there are many people visiting it – but I’ve gotten a few comments so I know it’s out there. However, in the last five days Google Analytics is showing that I only got ONE visitor, on Monday, and nothing on any other day??
For the folks with better web traffic, do your numbers seem accurate to you?
I’m with Baz .. right now – it’s very “information overload”. The details will probably make more sense as time goes on. So far ..I like two of the executive summary graphs – the one that show that “geo map overlay” and the “visits by source”
Only problem, I had to do a domain. My master domain contains all my domains (as aliases) I have to figure out how to break it down by master/folder instead of domain down the line – but, another day (hopefully after reading tips from other people who gone through it in greater detail) thanks in advance :D
[…] Darren is also getting them to work, so I guess Google got things sorted out. But why didn’t they work like this the first day? […]
Chris: The numbers seem accurate, yes. Check “View Source” and make sure their script is appearing on the pages you think it is. You may only have it on new pages?
I haven’t seen much discussion about the effects this might have on the World As We Know It. I posted a little at my blog, and I’ll repeat some of that here:
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There’s a lot of valuable information here, but keep in mind that it’s not just valuable to you. Google is giving all this disk space and processing power to you for free because it is even more valuable to them. Google sells advertising, and before Analytics knew quite a bit from their search engine traffic and their ads. Adding Analytics increases their knowledge many fold, and could both fill in gaps and add traffic data they never had before. It’s really a gold mine for them that will let them do far more effective marketing. So while we all ooh and ahh over the reports and graph’s, Google is quietly building an incredible pile of extremely valuable information.
Is there reason to be concerned about that? Remember, Google’s “Do no evil” motto is just a motto. I can easily imagine that a very high percentage of web sites will be signing up for this even if they do worry a little bit about the massive power Google may gain from it. This could eventually mean vastly improved ad and search targeting, which is good for Google, good for the sites running Google ads and perhaps even good for the people who view the ads, but it’s not good for Google’s competition. This information could also be used to improve Google search accuracy, which means it could affect page rank and therefore have positive and negative affects on web sites. In other words, we are willingly giving Google data that gives them a new way to assess our worth. Of course that can be good or bad, but the point is that it’s an awful lot of power moving toward one company.
I’m reminded of the old skits having the newscaster saying “I welcome our new alien overlords”. Google isn’t alien, but Google Analytics may put them very much in charge.
I can now see my stats, but they are not up-to-date…
Screenshot: http://www.julian-bez.de/blog/2005/11/15/google-analytics-who-is-not-waiting/
pcunix, in regards to these comments: “Adding Analytics increases their knowledge many fold, and could both fill in gaps and add traffic data they never had before. It’s really a gold mine for them that will let them do far more effective marketing………This information could also be used to improve Google search accuracy, which means it could affect page rank and therefore have positive and negative affects on web sites. In other words, we are willingly giving Google data that gives them a new way to assess our worth.”
Yes, they will be able to assess our worth much easier, and you are correct in saying that it could impact our web sites…but how much do you really have to fear? If you run a splog or a barely-touched site, you may have a lot to fear. If you run a quality site, it should help you out, both with making your site better (helping you in identifying some of its strengths), and with providing better-targeted advertising, which should generate more money for you. It could also help you out in PR and keyword areas.
Six months ago, I would have worried a lot about this and some of the other things they’ve done. Now with all of the competition Google has, I’m not so worried – they know that many of us have diversified, and have other avenues of revenue.
Well I had used old version of same software and must say google made tons of improvements to it :) they have added new reports and html/rss output options. With this software you will be able to see what visitors are looking for (keywords and other stuff) and you can write content according to those keywords too :)
I’m curious how it works out for you Darren. Please give us an update on some of the pros and cons of the analytics system.
Great – maybe my stats will start working in a few hours too. Google really should have anticipated the traffic, though.
It’s over 60 hours since I installed the Analytics code; still no reports.
Dan – I’m not worried: my sites are content rich, and yes, these tools can help me make them even better. I’m suggesting that the spammers and “me-too” sites may suffer from this. That’s good news as far as I’m concerned: let them die twisting and moaning..
Well – it worked for my blog pretty quickly, then stopped working again. Clearly Google’s server are not able to cope with all the demand. I am sure it’ll clear up soon. Anyway, maybe I am more used to this kind of website statistics, but I don’t think it’s information overload at all. Sure, some of their stats pages are useless to me, but that is only natural. Other than that it’s pretty nifty.
So now we all know, Google completely underestimated the demand for Analytics. I wonder how long it’ll take them to sort things out.
Records of my visits fell off a cliff Sept 27. I know from the number of visits since Jan 2007 that visits are being made, but cannot be seen. They just ended suddenly. Be glad your problem was only for 2 days. I have no idea how to fix this.