The Origins Of Google Analytics
It all began back in the latter part of 2005 when Google bought a prominent web analytics company called Urchin. Soon afterwards they began offering the Urchin product free of charge to some large technology publications. Based on the success of this, Google developed the Google Analytics service, which was modelled on the Urchin software and offered it to the general public. The best thing Google Analytics had going for it was that it was free and as a result it generated incredible amounts of interest. Upon it’s launch it was estimated that a quarter of a million accounts were created overnight, tracking half to three quarters of a million websites. Google didn’t anticipate such high demand and subsequently couldn’t handle the numerous requests for new accounts. This resulted in Google having to implement waiting lists so that web masters could register their intent to use the product. They could then be given access to the facility when the resources became available. Apparently where Google went wrong was forecasting the success of Google Analytics based on previous sales of the Urchin product. With a huge interest in web analytics, a free product would always be much more highly sought after and incomparable to any similar product with a monthly fee.
Those in the industry know enough to realise that if you have a website, then there is a need for analytics. Knowing how to read and interpret them is another matter. Statistics are all well and good, but gaining insight from the data is what can make the difference between a website that performs well and one that doesn’t. Google Analytics aims to give the average user a way to improve their site, and it does this job well. Those using Google Analytics in the early days began to make suggestions to Google on how they might improve the analytics service, and Google listened. A team at Google decided it was time to implement some new elements and make the system easier to use and from this the Google Analytics 2.0 application was formed. Google continues to update it’s analytics product with a view to keeping ahead of the game. Regular users of Google Analytics frequently notice new features and changes. Provided the service remains free and is still straight forward enough to use, Google will always be one of the biggest players in the world of web analytics.