Understanding the origin and evolution of Google Analytics will help you understand how far this tool has come and its potential future. Google Analytics is based on the Urchin web log analyzer software and its online equivalent, Urchin on Demand, which Google acquired when it bought the company called Urchin in 2005. Urchin was an expensive web analytics tool, priced beyond the reach of most library budgets. After some modifications to the Urchin tracker and web interface, Google Analytics was released later in 2005, available free but only to those who received an invitation to create a Google Analytics account. It was officially open to the public in late 2006.²

Google stopped supporting the Urchin software in 2012,³ but Google Analytics has continued to evolve, adding new reports and features. The Google Analytics tracking code received a major overhaul in 2009, transitioning to the asynchronous tracking script that loaded more efficiently in a web browser so it could be placed in the <head≯ section of a web page to offer more accurate data tracking.⁴ In 2011, Google Analytics upgraded to version 5, which overhauled its interface and report options.⁵ The real-time reports, one of the new additions, display data as traffic happens on a website—allowing you to monitor how users are navigating through your site without waiting for the data to arrive the next day.

Later in 2011, Google launched Google Analytics Premium, a fee-based service designed for large businesses with heavily trafficked websites. This service comes with additional custom reporting features and dedicated technical support, but its $150,000 annual fee is well outside the range of most library budgets.⁶ Not to worry—the free version of Google Analytics many libraries have adopted is still available and being developed. You should be aware this option exists in case you stumble upon documentation for the premium service.

Google Analytics Premium

www.google.com/analytics/premium/index.html

And Google Analytics promises major changes in the future. One of the largest upcoming improvements is Universal Analytics, a new tracking method that offers even more customizable options. How this will affect libraries is not clear yet, as the option is currently in beta and is available only to a select few who request and are granted access to the tool.⁷

Google Analytics offers a lot of functionality for a free web analytics tool. It contains the standard web analytics reports, such as Top Viewed Web Pages and Traffic Sources (how visitors find the site), but it also offers custom reports that allow libraries to determine which metrics they will analyze. Other key reports include Goal reports (the focus of chapter 6) and Site Search reports that can collect data gathered from your website’s search. You can even use Google Analytics for A/B testing using the Experiments report. Google Analytics can also track custom variables⁸ and mobile applications.⁹ The list of features is far too long to cover, which makes it essential for libraries to invest time in reviewing the Google Analytics documentation to discover all the available options.

Even a powerful web analytics tool like Google Analytics has some limitations. Libraries should be aware of these limitations before agreeing to the tool’s terms of service. First, Google Analytics is designed to be a hosted service, which means the use data gathered from your website visitors will be captured and retained on a Google server, not your own. This generates legitimate concerns about who controls that data. For example, once Google Analytics starts tracking data, you have no authority to remove that data other than by deleting the entire profile. Additionally, Google Analytics is not designed to be an infinite repository for a website’s data. According to web analytics expert Brian Clifton, Google Analytics policy for its free version is to retain data for 25 months.¹⁰ While both authors of this report have Google Analytics accounts with data going back further than 25 months, it is not a good idea to assume that your data will always be there. Libraries need to have a data-archiving plan to export the necessary data and store it internally to prevent tragic data loss.

Google Analytics Terms of Service

www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

Google Analytics also does not provide data to track individual users—it intentionally aggregates all website users as visitors and makes you either segment or filter the data into defined user groups. This is part of the Google Analytics privacy policy.¹¹ What does this really mean? Google Analytics will not provide individual session logs (how one visitor accessed and navigated through your site) or give you access to the IP addresses of website users that could be used to identify specific computers or devices accessing your site. Essentially, it is difficult or impossible to use Google Analytics to track and identify individuals using your website. While this is good news because libraries often do not want to store or share personally identifying information with outside commercial entities, it also implies you cannot have the level of data analysis you can get from other web analytics tools.

Lastly, Google Analytics’s out-of-the-box configuration does not seamlessly track all the data you may want to track. The most common example of “untrackable” data is outbound links—those links that navigate users to a different website. A link to the library catalog (catalog.libraryexample.org) from library’s website (www.libraryexample.org) would be considered an outbound link and would require additional configurations on your library’s website to track clicks on that link. We will cover these customizations in chapters 3 and 5.

Despite its imperfections, Google Analytics is still an excellent web analytics tool that provides libraries with a detailed level of data that can be used to improve a site. However, libraries need to be prepared to invest in this free tool to make it worthwhile. This investment involves customizing Google Analytics to fit the library’s needs and taking the time to review the data it provides. The best piece of advice we can offer those responsible for managing their library’s Google Analytics accounts is to prioritize your library’s needs and take small steps to implement the necessary configurations to get the data your library wants from the tool.