What is Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a traffic reporting and analysis tool for websites.  It tells you how many people are coming to your site, from where and what they are looking at when they get there.

Bought to you by those wonderful folk at Google, it is a free tool that competes well against many software reporting tools that aren't free.

For small or medium companies it's hard to argue why you'd pay thousands of dollars for another tool, particularly one that has a large and public following and support network.  It's even harder to argue why you'd use another free tool, although there are good ones out there and if you like yours and it tells you what you want to know then stick with it.

Google Analytics is our default tool of choice, but it's not suitable for every business.  It might not be for you if:

• If your traffic data is sensitive and/or key to your competitive advantage
• You need internal performance reporting (on bandwidth usage or response times for example)
• You want to measure your intranet

If there is one thing you must do with your website is track and measure it's performance.  Otherwise it's a bit like having a bank account and never checking your balance.

We have a list of FAQ's for finding specific information in Google Analytics