What follows is part of a email that was sent to a client this week concerning some problems we were having with Google Analytics.

“Ok, first thing is first. I can’t personally guarantee 100% that I’m going to resolve this. There’s several things outside of my control that could be causing anomalies; the visitor clicks on a link before the analytics code loads, GA hiccups, or the planets haven’t aligned properly. It’s Google Analytics and it’s free and so that means no direct support. There’s no person to contact at Google to say ‘Why isn’t this working?’. They have a support forum and it’s like panning for gold in there. Sometimes you find a nugget, but mostly it’s dirt and dead bugs. I’ll keep pounding at it, but at some point I’ve got to say that there are parts of this that are out of my hands.”

I can’t say I stated everything as eloquently as I should have. I was a little frustrated with the problem seeing as how I thought it was resolved. Some of it was my fault and the rest of it I can’t determine because I haven’t worked my search engine voodoo well enough to find the answer. But I walked away from this with some key lessons.

• Google Analytics isn’t 100% Accurate
  Don’t believe me? Here let me Google that for you. When you’re looking at those numbers, you have to realize that they’re not the gospel truth. There’s some stuff missing. It’s the nature of the beast.
• They Crowdsource Support
  Google provides this service free. If there’s a problem, the only official form of support is the Google Analytics Support Forum. There’s a lot of good infromation in there, but you have to hunt to find it & that takes time. There’s no 800 number, no email address; just a forum with a search function and the wisdom of the masses.
• Some Issues will never be resolved
  It does some cool stuff, but sometimes it goes goofy. Chances are that there is a answer to the problem somewhere out there, but there’s a smaller (but significant) chance that it isn’t. We’re not paying for it, so we don’t exactly have the backing to make ‘em fix it. Free is good, but it has it’s drawbacks.

So, like it, love it, hate it; but it is what it is.

Cool? Yes.

Free? Yes.

Accurate? Not so much.

Frustration Free? Absolutely not.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Client Education, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.