Urchin renamed to "Google Analytics" and becomes FREE

See this article:
http://www.informationweek.com/story...leID=173602188

Quote from official Google pressrelease
This is simply awesome... Are you downloading yet ?

You don't download it, you add a script tag to pages you want tracked. It's also in "maintenance mode" right now so I can't sign up or get the code to use on any of my domains

So, is Google is going to use the analytics to influence their search results?

Is that too obvious to even mention?

Good question and the answer to both is "probably yes"

I tried to keep it short.

Well for those of us who use AdSense, they can already analylze our traffic to their heart's content.

Don't they only analyze pages that you place their ads on? For me that's only about one hundred, compared to about 1000 with YPN.

I tried to sign up, but I guess it's still in maitenence or something, who knows?

I guess it couldn't hurt to use it, and somehow (secretly) it could influence SERPs. I just hope that it works fine with application/xhtml+xml, as most Google services do not.

They have to potential to use it for much more. With Google AdSense they could learn as much about the usage patterns of a site as they could with Google Analytics.

Still, now we get to see cool graphs about the information they collect.

As mentioned, Google ads surely provides good analysis, except about sites that don't use Google Ads.

Sites that use Google Ads are a distorted sample for a variety of reasons.

Yup- I posted on /. the same thing today. Someone was freaking out that it uses a JavaScript include. I mentioned that they already know everything we do already.

Anyway, the real question: how much does this differ from Urchin 5? I already have that amazing piece of software on my machine locally, so I don't see much of a reason to change (I don't sell software, so I don't have a need for conversion tracking). I doubt it can really serve anything up that's too much different from what I already have.

Great idea though- Urchin is amazing, and I'm glad Google's finally putting it to use. I'm glad for Urchin the company, too, for their success. When I first saw Urchin 3 I knew it had a solid future ahead of itself.

Actually, the even more important question: what happens to Urchin in the next few years? Will everyone have to go through Google to get it? :\

It's being renamed to uuuuuuuuuurchin and will have ads based on your user agent and cookie details.

Yes, but look at the reports they provide you with... very useful! I signed up all my sites and I can't wait to see what they say.

It provides a lot more reports than Urchin 5... for example, they let you look at your site overlayed with the %age of people that clicked on each link. You can also have it track conversions... i.e. if you sell something, you can see how much money you make from each search engine, ad campaign, etc.

Owen

Will it tell me which referer is generating clicks on Adsense ads?

I guess I don't see enough of a benefit for me to throw more stuff into my page when I already have Urchin. Though I suppose if you don't, this is a great way to do so.

This looks promising, although I was half way through registration and got a lot of 404s. Had to give up for now.

Unfortunatly, because of the way AdSense works most of the time hits from AdSense does not result in referrer information.

This looks interesting. More reporting can (probably) help. It worked fine for me earlier today when I signed up.

I believe the reports are quite a bit more detailed than Urchin 5. Take a look at Urchin's pricing. Urchin charged $500 a month for Urchin 6 + $1 CPM, while only charging a one time fee of $800 for Urchin 5. For changing that much more, there had better be a difference! If you get 5 million page views, Urchin would have charged $1000 a month.

I currently use Urchin and I'm very happy with it, but I'm excited to see what new metrics I'll get from the new tool. If they're not more useful, I'll go back to Urchin 5. I'll report back on the differences in 12 hours when Google creates the reports.

Owen

So... do we use it or not???

Well I just signed up for it. I only have 3 templates for a 750 page site so it was very easy to add the javascript.

"Way cooler than the paid version of Extreme Tracking I'm using" , that's what I thought this morning when I signed up.
But it sucks that it's not real time, takes freaking 12 hours to generate the traffic detail.

It takes 12 hours to get your first stats. It takes an hour for the updates.

Well I think it's just on the first use it takes that long...

But is this a way of being spied on?

Checking status does not work. It does not pick up the javascript. So it maybe too soon to use this tool.

It has been 38 hours and I still haven't seen any stats. I wonder what it taking so long.

It's been about 19 hours for me, and I do not have any data in my profile either. I haven't seen anyone talking about it anywhere who actually has data. I'd be very interested to know if anyone has data, anywhere. Seems to me that Google is having some major (minor?) problems with its new service.

Google Analytics validates as XHTML 1.0 strict.

testied it out at www.elucid-online.com for those who want proof.

For me, this is the first time that google can't stick to its word.. 24 hours now and the message still says:
Analytics has been successfully installed and data is being gathered now. Your first reports will be ready within twelve hours.

I also get the 12 hour message, its over 24 hours later.

The interface was VERY slow at first, it has sped up now so that's good, there is progress being made. But still no use for an interface lacking data.

Well it is working now Just wait for few hours..

Now I get this:
Analytics has been successfully installed and data is being gathered now. Your first reports will be ready within twelve hours.

I'm getting that too. Apparently patience is important.

Johansson, they seem like they didn't do anything about it because it should have been prepared to handle the hundreds of thousands of webmasters applying daily!

yeah, I have the same error. Let's give google some time. They'll surely fix it soon.

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so? is this something new in the business sector? everyone wants to be the market ruler!! I think that as per you Microsoft should say that Mozilla is evil since it has broken away a lot of IE users to FireFox!! That's just one of the most ridiculous statements I've read!!

Same thing here for me... it won't detect the JS.

I filled out the contact form on the Help page to ask about it. The form submitted to a .py script that didn't exist.

Stellar.

Well, they actually bought Urchin in March so it was not exactly a few minutes. This scenario was an extremely high probablility.

Status is not working?

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The Google Analytics tracking code has not been detected on your website's home page. For Analytics to function, you or your web administrator must add the code to each page of your website.
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I have pasted code in right place.

I get the same error. I cannot create goal either - it just throws an unknown error. My testing conludes that the service is a POS so far. :P

Been over 24 hours now still giving the same message it was giving when I first signed up
Gathering data. Stats will be available within 12 hours.

lol i was using that to make a point not really meaning as it is written..

anyhow its still is matter of minutes because of their name, their influence of other sites and most importantly how they will bundle this with adwords and adsense to further expand the reach i suppose..

Yes. And sorry I got that wrong

Good move for google and a great move for me

There are other calculations behind launching a service. For instance, do you know if yahoo bought another stats site and they preparing it now? You don't. So, there are other calculations.
If it was not minutes, then how come a google service is too slow since launching (now a bit faster) and nothing works until now?

this is scary..

in a matter of minutes google has destroyed so many established company offering all those services..

I agree to DevInterActive because I offer web stats services! Now my members will go to google analytics instead.

But their servive is still not 100% functional. 12 hours passed and it still says:
Gathering data. Stats will be available within 12 hours.

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Erm, for those of you wondering where your stats is... try crunching stats for a huge influx of new accounts and have it ready on time. Heck, Urchin takes awhile to crunch my own logfiles, and I'm just one site. Yes, Google would have beefier servers for this, but it is a new service and I'm sure there's a reason for the delay.

Quite odd... I have data in my reports, but my index still says 'You first reports will be ready within twelve hours'

Anyways, other than that, it all looks very good.

According to instructions the code is suppose to go between the Meta lines and the </head>. frontpage forces the meta border there and the google scripts is above it. Do you think this really makes a difference.

Tomer, good call, I was going to mention the same thing.

Considering that they've specifically mentioned it, yeah.

Everybody that still didn't get their stats. Even though it says "Getting stats", click the "View Stats" link, you may have the stats loaded [the graphs and such]. For me I have stats eventhough it says I don't.

- Tomer

Im still getting "The Google Analytics tracking code has not been detected on your website's home page" even though I've quite obviously inserted the code correctly..

I had this. I left it over night and when I came into the office today the stats were sitting there for me I must say so far I am impressed but I am looking forward to how well the ecommerce integrates.

the stats are nothing compared to webtrends.

I'm very pleased with this development, although it will probably be the end of statscounter. Now I'm waiting for a complete google control panel that combines Adwords, Adsense and Analystics.

All the G Analytics folks are over here at WMW conference in Vegas. I chatted with a few of them tonight.

lol cool, stas are quite impressive but can be pretty slow..

i dont know if i would have paid for this software as the software budled in CPanel gives similar statistics.. but seeing its free i guess its ok

me 2 still waiting, been more than 24 hrs for me. But I cant wait to see what it generates.

I finally have stats!!!! Not very impressive. I mean on my part. Most of my traffic comes from me.

My opinion is that it is a great tool comparing to all other free stats programs. The best I could find was addfreestats but it has a small gif visible.

As far as monitoring goes, of course they can monitor your site perfomance as every advertiser can. I still run fastclick even though I know they can track everything on my site. At least google will be showing me this info.

Of course if you have a software like urchin or webtrends, stick with it. Pages will load a bit faster without the javascript and you can create reports every 5 minutes if you want.

I just wish more companies follow google and provide a desent free stats service. Like Yahoo gave more space to email when gmail was introduced.

Ask yourself why would Google release a previously expensive bit of software for no charge unless it was beneficial to them? It's no conspiracy and Google's ethos clearly is that information is power so this is just another means for them to gather it. I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong or underhanded, just that for whatever reason Google are as interested in who visits your site as you are.

Methinks I'll give it a miss for now.

Would using this help finding your site on Google faster?

Hmm... guys I seem to be having a spot of bother trying to make this work for my site. I keep getting an Invalid Input error (see attachment). I guess I'm missing something here.

I think what he meant was that will using Google Analytics help in getting your site indexed by Google fast? I think that this might be the case, since if you use Google's SiteSearch on your website, your website is indexed by Google pretty fast!! Being indexed by Google & moving up in SERPs are two different things where latter is dependent on the former!!

Great!

Does any one know how long till the stats are updated in real time?

No more spending 200 bucks for stats . Ahh I love google

Ah, another step in the direction of world wide web dominance for Google. Now they get very detailed reports on the best performing keywords and on what websites and pages. The genious of it is that it's all free so everyone thinks Google is doing THEM a favor... Surely there is some master scheme behind all this that Google has been keeping up their sleeve. I wonder what they're going to do with all the data they collect? Maybe real-time adsense keyword value? Maybe something we haven't seen yet...

Yep .. Google is run by those folks at the New World Order conspiracy who want to take over the world!!

i added the code to my <head> tags and i still can not update my sites status...also those wondering about the information google gets from your sites, according to the New York Times the information is not sent to google for anything but generating the statistical analysis of your site.

Wow, Google shuts down another WWW small business sector. I love Google! :-)

I signed up 21 hours ago. I still have no stats.

When adding your domain to Google to be tracked, does it matter if it is www.domain.com or domain.com. Probably a stupid question..

Finally this is out, I remember the aquisition by Google, and have been waiting for this.

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All it does is send a javascript to their servers. I don't know how it being sent as xhtml will affect it. Maybe I don't know enough about javascript and xhtml. :|

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Matter of minutes? C'mon now! They prolly been working at it for months.

Uhm, is it true that this stats package needs to execute a javascript from every page in order to work? That would be a no-go to me. For one because it wouldn't track people with JS disabled and also because I don't want to use any JS at all unless it's absolutely neccessary.

Ill just stick to Urchin5 until they have a better solution.

Ace Google - Has anyone implemented Ecommerce tracking?

^ Woo hoo. Was waiting for this for months. I remember reading a blog after this months ago.

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Now this I find scary!

yes, i'm also waiting for over 24hrs and have no stats. sucky

24 hours for me, and I'm still waiting for reports to show up.

How many employees do you think will get fired tonight?

3

Yea, I've been waiting over 24 hours and still no stats. It says its installed right and is collecting data... but no stats.

I remember when they bought Urchin earlier this year. And then I saw them drop their onDemand price to like 199$ which was about half of what Urchin used to charge which was really sweet. Now that they released it free... insanely awesome.

Been having same problem like other people, still not getting any reports after 24hrs.

No, Im pretty sure it'll have no effect on you going up in the google ranks faster.

Very nice im signed up I don't care, they can collect my website traffic it doesnt matter to me. lol

It would be nice to have a system to track RSS subscriptions and such (working on a custom one now). I still have to fiddle a bit with Google Analytics, and see if it even matches up to what I'm using now.

Not really. They're common enough amongst the web as a whole that they give a fair representation of what's out there. Sure, there is abuse, but that's easily accounted for, since the abuse exists almost exclusively on terms like "viagra" and "home mortgages".

Very cool. Just signed up.

Does it create an image back to google or is it invisible to the user?

Sweet, sign me up! This will help sites that run on more than one server..... No more combining log files.

It is invisible.

Sweet. Thanks, can see my stats now. Same bug.