Mymotech

I was honored to participate on a web analytics panel recently. And while the panel was mostly targeted at which KPIs count the most and other boring number crap, during the QA time the inevitable question about Google Analytics came up.

To give you some background. I am used to working with WebTrends, Omniture, WebSideStory, ClickTracks, etc… Obviously I have used Google Analytics extensively as well. I am a big fan of Google Analytics and now of Performancing Metrics too. In fact maybe I should rename my subtitle “I am measuring the crap out of this site.”

OK, back to my story. Someone asked the panel what they thought of Google Analytics. I gave the standard answer.

• It is great.
• It is dangerous for privacy reasons.
• It is dangerous for business reasons.

Back when Google Analytics first came out I remember that a lot of people saw doom for the web analytics vendors like WebTrends etc… Personally, I never saw that. In fact I think that it is having the opposite effect. Because everything Google does creates a huge buzz, they have actually heightened the consciousness for web analytics across the internet. This is playing out to make life better for the other vendors because there are still massive amounts of FUD that they can heap onto Google’s tool.

That being said I am going to start running a couple of these tools side by side, because usually there is more to be discovered than it usually appears at first glance.