Google launches web analytics tool

By Steve Malone

Posted on 15 Nov 2005 at 10:38

A move by Google towards offering some kind of web analytics tool has been on the cards since March of this year when the search engine announced the purchase of Urchin software.

Web analytical tools have become a vital component in the search engine optimisers' armoury. Whilst the analysis of server log files has been a no-brainer for any serious web site for over a decade web analytical tools are able to delve much deeper and provide information that allows an optimiser to study where the traffic from search engine comes from, what is does when it arrives on landing pages and, most importantly what it does when it gets there.

Brett Crosby, Product Marketing Manager in the company blog said 'These services help provide answers to questions like: Which keywords attract the most visitors? Which email campaigns create more customers? And how to design web page content that holds people's attention`.

The Analytics tool has been integrated with the company's AdWords contextual advertising programme with a new set of tools. The search engine says Google Analytics can automatically tag keyword destination URLs, and imports cost data for ROI reports either as raw data or in chart format. Google Analytics can also be used to track the results of any online marketing campaign, including banner ads, referral links, email newsletters, and organic and paid search

Just as importantly, web analytics tools allow a web master to spot whether their ads are being spammed by competitors or whether web sites are boosting the click through rate on the ads they serve to get money from the Google AdSense programme.

Although Google Analytics is primarily intended for the company's AdWords customers, the service is provided free for anyone with a web site. The service has been launched with support for 16 languages, along with three built-in summary reports for the executive, marketer and webmaster

More details are available at the Google Analytics web site.