How good is Google Analytics

[cheap]

Just a quick question how good and precise is analytics.
So if it say's your average position is 40 for certain keywords is it really.
And why when you search for it it's not where Google said.

 

[JonathanSEO]

Just a quick question how good and precise is analytics.
So if it say's your average position is 40 for certain keywords is it really.
And why when you search for it it's not where Google said.

Google analytics isn't a tool for checking your position in Google...

 

[Simply Clicks]

Google Analytics is a good tool for monitoring what's happening to your website. You may be getting traffic from sources other than search. To check your rankings use a good rank checking tool that covers Google.co.uk.

 

[Andy Harris]

As JonathanSEO says, search online on 'rank tracker' type keyword phrases and you'll find various offerings, some of which will have free trials.

 

Its very good for Google.

Not so sure about its users.:|

 

[Alan]

Just a quick question how good and precise is analytics.
So if it say's your average position is 40 for certain keywords is it really.
And why when you search for it it's not where Google said.

I assume you are talking about the search positions, when you link through the search query data from WebMaster tools?

That dat is across all google 'search' properties, which includes google images and maps.
Often an image, especially if it is large, obtains a good position in Google Images when you site isn't necessarily ranking in the SERPs.

You should do some detailed analysis of your analytics and se if you are getting hits through Google Images. Often traffic from Google Images isn't particularly good for conversions, but you need to check your conversion data analytics as every business is different.

If necessary you can exclude your images from being indexed in Google Images by adding the appropriate disallow to you robots.txt.

 

[Doodled]

1) If you link up your Google Webmaster Tools with Analytics you can see your average position in Google Analytics.

2) When you do a search you see a "personalised search" so hence the position you see for your website could be much higher or lower than reported in Analytics/GWT

3) As has been said above - the position reported is across all searches - geographic and type

 

[Shelly Watson]

Google analytic is an effective tool to monitor the traffic of your website. You can analyze the visitors' behavior based on the information.

 

[irfan.nezami]

Google Analytic s can track and monitor the traffic coming to your website,through other sites and direct . But you can't analyse your site what is the performance and site health. for this you have to configure Google webmaster tool.

 

[andrewflower12]

hey mate

i will suggest all of you to use statcounter also ...

don't depends on google analytics only as its not as userfriendly and lacks with many functionality which we can have from statcounter so as from my view use statcounter its far better than analytics

 

[Andy Harris]

Hmmm, I wouldn't go as far as saying Statcounter is better than Google Analytics!

Every analytics package has their own benefits and pricing structures. Google Analytics can do an awful lot and most people use only a fraction of what it can do. However, other analytics solutions are useful in other ways.

The general rule is that Google Analytics is useful to have, but could be complemented with other analytics systems that give website owners different views of the data.

 

[DesignerNick]

I quite like Piwik as it is free and is a bit more user friendly when it comes to showing how people found your site and what they did on there. If I have set a site up for somebody I sometimes give them access to that as it is more basic but straight to the point.

I have found with Analytics although it is very powerful it is getting harder to see the basics.

 

[amarbans]

I'd recommend CuteRank.

 

[Shopping 4 Shelves]

Google analytic is an effective tool to monitor the traffic of your website. You can analyze the visitors' behavior based on the information.

I think Google Analytics is a fantastic tool.

Looking at site visits and how people behave on your site is a crucial part of running your business!

 

[papercups]

Google Analytics tools is useful for monitor the website traffic.

 

[webahead]

Google Analytics helps you to monitor the traffic to your site like from which keyword the user enters your site, how much time he spent on your site and from which page he exited from the site.

web design darlington

 

[LaptopLife]

Google Analytics is ONLY useful if the information collected by it is analyzed and acted upon!

 

[LaptopLife]

The key to using Google Analytics data is to collect, analyse and review it. As many people know Google can produce a number of reports, which detail your unique visitors, your traffic sources and a whole lot more.

 

[dxter]

Google analytic is second best only to the server logs analytic tools

 

[Alan]

I disagree, well at least with the free server log analyzer Awstats & Webablizer, they are not very useful at all.

Google Analytics & other off server Analytics Tool such as Piwik offer much more advanced functionality
- Goal Tracking
- E-Commerce conversion tracking
and far deeper insights with configurable reports

The only advantage the server logs tools have are they see everything that goes on, whereas off server analytics is at risk of potentiallly losing the odd bit of data.

DO you know of an advanced server log based tool, i.e. far more advanced than the baic Awstats/Webalizer tools?

 

[Mersey Developments]

If you want to know your rankings with the best accuracy possible, nothing is better then to do it manually (these ranking tools arent the best).

Gte google chrome, put it into incognito mode, do a search in google then CTRL+F (find your domain) in the rankings....count up until you find it.

 

[Ocean Feather]

Just a quick question how good and precise is analytics.
So if it say's your average position is 40 for certain keywords is it really.
And why when you search for it it's not where Google said.

Mate Google analytic is not a tool for checking your site position.It actually help you to monitor your website traffic on a certain keyword.

 

[dxter]

There are a few tools better than AWstats for example Deep Log Analyzer. However they are not easy to utilize.

I was not clear in my previous post. I agree that Google analytics provide more advance features however server logs analytics work with better data set.

 

[Alan]

I agree that Google analytics provide more advance features however server logs analytics work with better data set.

Sometimes. Of course it is possible to add customised event tracking & similar through Javascript client side tracking like GA and others, which gives you insight into actions that did not create a server side event.

A prime example of that is the 'bounce' which when measured in a traditional server side way requires the user to move on to another page on that site to register the visit as a non-bounce.

Of course, if you think about it, that may make no sense in terms of a one page site, you might want to measure how long the user lingered on the page and if it was say over 15 seconds, you might want to count tht as a 'non bounce'. Perefectly possible in GA (although not the standard settings) but I don't know anyway using server side logs to see solely client side activity.

 

[seowise]

I think Google Analytics is great to find what a site is already ranking for, like when you buy a new site and want to see what it's up to. [FONT=&quot]You'll find these data in Traffic Source -> Search -> Organic. [/FONT] I wouldn't use it for daily or weekly checks because it doesn't seem very handy.