Google Analytics is another free service offered by big G.
The announce was posted this morning (at 6 a.m.?! - do these guys sleep) on the official Google Blog but they are having some problems since I tried 2 times already and right at the final step I get:
We're upgrading accounts. Please come back later.
Thanks for stopping by. We are currently migrating existing customers to the newly improved Google Analytics service. This process will be completed later this afternoon. Please come back then to sign up for Google Analytics.
So the question is "moving which customers?". Well
Google acquired
Urchin Software a while ago and in a first step lowered the monthly cost of the hosted web analytics service,
Urchin On Demand, from $495 to $199. Today, Google renamed Urchin under the name
Google Analytics and made it available to everyone for free.
Way to go Google, thank you for all the gifts. By the way, this Chrystmas you can
Give the Gift of Google, meaning put on a cd the free programs Google has to offer and send it to your friends.
One more thing, before signing up with Google Analytics, read a little more on the agreement you accept. Just an excerpt:
FEES AND SERVICES. Subject to Section 15 herein, the Service is provided without charge to You for up to 5 million pageviews per month per account, and if You have an active Adwords campaign in good standing, the Service is provided without charge to You without a pageview limitation.
Google may change its fees and payment policies for the Service from time to time including but not limited to the addition of costs for geographic data, the importing of cost data from search engines, or other fees charged to Google or its wholly-owned subsidiaries by 3rd party vendors for the inclusion of data in the Service reports. The changes to the fees or payment policies are effective upon Your acceptance of such changes which will be posted at www.google.com/analytics (or such other URL Google may provide from time to time). Unless otherwise stated, all fees are quoted in U.S. Dollars. Any outstanding balance becomes immediately due and payable upon termination of this Agreement for any reason and any collection expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred by Google will be included in the amount owed, and may be charged to the credit card or other billing mechanism associated with your Adwords account.
So, why free from almost a $200 fee? Well they promote this way Google AdWords, they make this a popular service and who knows, maybe they'll create a paid account too (somewhere under $20). Nobody said that maybe they use these statistics too ;).
[Update]
Well right after I installed the JavaScript code on a website I tried clicking on
Check Status and I still got that message "Tracking Unknown. 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."
The thing is that now, almost a week after, I still get that error message. So I wrote and ask the support team, and their answer was:
- The "Check Status" feature is currently not accurate. If you added the code to your pages correctly, then we are collecting data. You can make sure by seeing if your site has set "_utm" cookies in your browser.
- If your reports aren't currently populated, they will be as soon as the next processing run is complete. We process every 24 hours.
- You may see some reports within a profile before others. We're populating reports like this to get you as much information as soon as we can. If you see this, rest assured that all applicable reports will show data soon.
- Once we catch up with the data for your account, you'll see new reports every 24 hours.And this is true, the reporting works but that Check Status feature doesn't. Just ignore that button if you're installing Google Analytics.
[Update 2]
Hello Google Analytics User,
This is a quick update to address some issues you may be seeing
in your Google Analytics account and what we're doing to respond.
First, due to extremely high demand, we've temporarily limited
the number of new signups as we increase capacity. This allows
us to focus on our primary objective--to provide a great user
experience for our existing users.
Next, here is current information on the most common questions
we're receiving:
1. The 'Check Status' button is being reworked to check for
properly installed tracking code. This should be fixed by the
end of November.
2. The '+Add Profile' link has been temporarily removed until
we increase capacity. We'll alert all current users when the
feature is restored.
3. While we increase capacity, you may see longer than normal
delays in data showing up in your reports. All data continues
to be collected and no data has been lost.
For additional help with your Google Analytics account, we
encourage you to browse or search our online Help Center at
http://www.google.com/support/analytics?hl=en.
Thanks for your patience as we improve Google Analytics and add
resources to ensure a high-quality service.
Sincerely,
The Google Analytics Team
