Google’s new analytics setup looks impressively slick. That data, on the other hand, goes right through to big GG themselves, so all of you e-commerce nuts with cloaking, pop-ups, low conversion rates and short average visit lengths best beware.
I suppose this is the logical step from the Urchin purchase last Spring, but I wasn’t expecting it quite so soon. Since I haven’t had time to check the other SEO blogs this morning, I’m probably a few hours too late (who knows, I may have missed it last week and be days too late).
Why do I recommend staying away?
It’s my opinion that Google is going to attempt to use the analytics data in the SERPs and while they may eventually get it right, my guess is that some folks are going to take the brunt of the data collection fallout in the SERPs. Why be a fall guy? Unless you are confident that your stats will show Google your site rocks, let some other e-commerce store or ad pushing site be the guinea pig. Of course, if your site does kick *ss, go for it. Show Google you deserve to be at the top with those hour long visits and 12% conversion rate. Who knows? Maybe they’ll kick you up a notch.
This a genius bit of product pushing, though:
Free.
Google Analytics gives us an opportunity to invest in our advertisers and everyone else who wants to create quality content on the web. Instead of spending money on web analytics, you can focus on creating targeted, ROI-driven marketing campaigns, and on improving your site design and content.
My guess is that a lot of webmasters are going to be tempted to move away from their existing $50-$500 a month analytics over to Google. The ‘plex is about to have a lot of data on their hands.
