Google Analytics is one of the leading free analytics programs in the world today. It has been adopted by millions of webmasters, and it is continuing to grow in popularity everyday. Over the last year, Google Anayltics has undergone a number of different changes that have impacted the way people use the service.
Recent Changes
In 2012, Google Analytics went through a few changes that altered the service. One of the biggest changes that Google made was separating the keyword data in Analytics from people who were logged into Google and those who were not. If you were logged into Google for any of their products, and then you did a search on their search engine, the keyword that you used would not appear in any Google Analytics results. This protects the search information for Google users, and makes it so that webmasters don’t know what they’re searching for.
Speeding Up Analytics
In the past, one of the big complaints about Google Analytics is that it was relatively slow to load reports. With so much information, it took a few seconds to get the reports that people wanted to see. Google announced changes to the format for Analytics, which speeds up the processing time. When you open the Analytics interface, the information will be cached into your browser. Then when you click on a report, it will load. This has the potential to speed up your Analytics sessions, because you won’t be waiting on reports to load.
Changes in Search Engine Reports
Within the last year, Google has also made changes to the way that Analytics reports results from search engines. It added a few search engines to the list such as Rakuten, Biglobe, and Startsiden. In the past, any results from search engines that contained the word “Search” in the URL were incorrectly attributed to the search engine “Search.com.” Recently, they fixed this bug, so that the reports are no longer incorrect.
Custom Information
Google Analytics has always been a source of a vast amount of information, but now you have the ability to customize the reports that you look at. Instead of just looking at a bunch of prepackaged reports that are included in the program, you can pick and choose the variables that you want to look at. This gives you a lot of flexibility in looking at your data and analyzing it.
The Google Analytics SEO report also shows you the first position of a link to your site. In the past, it just showed you the average position, but now it shows the first one. This can provide you with valuable information that you can use to improve the performance of your site overall.
Case Study
Google released a case study involving well-known brand Puma. Puma is a shoes and apparel seller that has been around for many years. In the case study, Puma used Google Analytics to get important information about its site traffic. By using this information, Puma was able to increase orders by seven percent in a short period of time. By using the information that was provided, it determined what needed to be done to boost conversions.
What’s Next? Predictions
In the future, there are probably going to be a lot of changes that take place within Analytics and in Google in general. Google may change the way it analyzes links. For example, it could stop paying attention to the “no follow” attribute. It could stop looking at PageRank or use any number of other methods. Google Analytics may start tracking all of this information to put more of an emphasis on building links.
Richard H. works for http://www.newyorkstatedivorce.com a law firm from New York, optimizing their website for better loading time. He works mainly with WordPress. Always hungry for more knowledge and new friendships.
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