GoogleAnalytics.com is Google's free web analytics tool.

Enterprise-class web analytics

Tracking, measuring and optimizing website traffic and performance are integral to online success. As it turns out, the process can also be fun, especially when it's free.

Google Analytics is a free online web analytics solution that can be used on its own or in tandem with other advertising and analysis tools from Google, such as AdWords and Website Optimizer.

Hosted on the same enterprise platform that supports Google's world-class search engine, Google Analytics is safely used by Fortune 500 companies, e-commerce startups and celebrity bloggers to track, measure and optimize website performance.

Friendly to both marketers and webmasters, Google Analytics presents an easy-to-use online interface and tools for discovering how users:

Find site content
Utilize new features
Respond to purchasing, marketing and lead-generation campaigns

Google Analytics was launched as a free online tool suite in November 2005. It is comparable to commercial products such as Coremetrics, VisiStat and Omniture.

Website measurement and optimization with Google Analytics

When the Huffington Post required web analytics software to evaluate the success of story formats, news, and other featured content on the site, it turned to Google Analytics.

"We needed to continuously isolate our products -- news, editorial, blogs and more -- and see how each one was performing over time," says Chief Technology Officer Paul Berry.

Whereas most web analytics tools come at a price, Google Analytics is free. That's a key benefit, Berry says.

Google Analytics gives us all the features of a high-end analytics package and delivers the data we need to continuously optimize site performance. And at no charge, the price is right.Paul Berry

Bloggers use Google Analytics software to track and improve blog content. Useful statistics include top referring sites, most-searched keywords and where AdSense pays.

Using Google Analytics

After creating a Google Analytics account, a user adds a Google Analytics Tracking Code (a snip of JavaScript that can be included in page templates) to pages on the website. The code enables Google Analytics to track visitor activity and sort the information. After 24 hours, a new user can log in to Google Analytics and begin using its many features to understand visitor activity.

New users typically start out by using Google Analytics Graph Mode to study statistics such as daily unique visitors, average time on the website, keyword conversions and bounce rate.

As users become more sophisticated, they can set up new campaign goals, compare benchmarks with similar sites, generate automated email reports and even access the Google Analytics API to create new features or customize existing ones.

Technical support is available from the following sources: