Google Analytics is not Warm or Fuzzy
After the initial 12 hour waiting period, I began to observe my stats in Google Analytics. Sometime during the third day Google stopped tracking my statistics. The server log shows a plethora of hits and visits during the last few days, but Google shows zero visits or hits for the last three days! I guess I should have been tipped off by the sentence fragment.
Although the waiting period for the stats was annoying, and the fact that statistics are not updated in real time was also annoying, I still found Google Analytics to be a pretty cool tool initially. You see graphical representations of pageviews, visits, geo-location mapping, and keyword searches. It also allows you to set marketing and funneling goals and measure progress. I never got a chance to try the more advanced tools since it stopped tracking. From the Google Analytics FAQ:
Updated: I’m not seeing any data in my reports.
If your reports are not displaying data:
- Check that tracking code has been correctly added to all of your pages. It should be placed between the
<head>and</head>tags, and should appear after any of the<meta>tags in that section.- Urchin reports are not viewable on Safari browsers on Mac OS X. Try accessing your account with Firefox, Netscape, or Mozilla
- If the tracking code is installed correctly, you may be checking your reports before data has appeared. It generally takes 24 hours for reporting data to appear in your account after you have installed the code.
That’s it, the complete troubleshooting guide to help me figure out why I’m not seeing any data. I did re-check my tracking code, but this was obviously not the problem since nothing had changed on my end betwwen the time I initially added the code and it stopped tracking….and it worked fine for 2.5 days (or so).
Further annoyances included the fact that the graphic renderings don’t work in Safari (only Firefox, Netscape, or Mozilla on Mac), and the inability to add additional domains to my account. While the Google Analytics FAQ claims you can add up to 50 domains, I was unable to get even a second domain recognized. This may have been due to the tracking issues I experienced.
As you can probably guess, I am not experiencing warm, fuzzy feelings about Google Analytics. Prognosis, negative. For now, I’m removing the tracking code from my site, and I’ve installed Mint, Shaun Inman’s ultra-cool referrer spam proof statistics tool. More on this later.
No Comments »
No comments yet.