Definition:
Google Analytics is a web measurement tool that collects the interactions that happen within a website or app and that allows access to the analytical data of the pages through an interface or its API.
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Origin of Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics service with free and paid versions offered by Google that tracks and reports on the traffic of a website. Following the acquisition of Urchin, Google launched the service in November 2005, with Google Analytics currently being the most widely used web analytics service on the Internet.
Versions of Google analytics
Apart from the free one, Google Analytics is also offered in two additional versions: a subscription called Google Analytics 360 Suite targeted environments with large volumes of visits and by mobile applications, an SDK that allows the collection of iOS and Android usage data.
Integrated with AdWords, users can review online campaigns by tracking landing page quality and conversions (goals). Goals can include sales, lead generation, viewing a specific page, or downloading a particular file.
How Google Analytics works
The focus of Google Analytics is to show the casual user the data in a high-level dashboard and other data deeper into a set of reports. Analytics analytics can identify underperforming pages with techniques such as funnel visualization, where visitors came from, how long they stayed, and their geographic position. It also offers more advanced features, including custom user segmentation.
Ecommerce reports can track sales activity and performance, and show a site’s transactions, revenue, and many other commerce-related metrics.
A user can have 100 site profiles. Each profile generally corresponds to a website. It is limited to sites that have traffic of less than 5 million page views per month (approximately 2 page views per second), unless the site is linked to an AdWords campaign. Google Analytics includes Google Website Optimizer, renamed Google Analytics Content Experiments.
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