Saturday, November 19, 2005

Google Analytics Tips

Here are some tips and tricks for using Google Analytics:

• Do you have several websites, and they’re sorted automatically in the main view – but you’d prefer to have your most important site on top? Just put a blank before the profile’s title. To do so, click “Edit” to go to the settings, and click “Edit” again for the first details box. Change the title and save the profile again.
• Even though the status of your profile may read “Waiting for Data” and not the final “Receiving data”, it might actually already show results when you click on “View results”.
• For those who think Google is missing out on some stats, I don’t know if this might be the reason, but give it some more time. E.g. when I checked my stats on Wednesday, Tuesday was already showing but with lower numbers than I expected (and lower numbers than Monday). And then, on Thursday, it’s showing with higher numbers than Monday. In other words, Google is often showing only partial data for a day, even though the day is already displayed. That might make some think the data of that day has been acquired completely, but that’s only one of the little oddities of Google Analytics...
• The geo map overlay graphic might not actually show precisely where your visitors come from. Certain proxies might fool you into thinking everybody’s from place X, when actually only the proxy is located at X.

Got more tips? Please post a comment.

Google Analytics Tips by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (7)

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