Google Releases Google Analytics Updates

I thought Avinash Kaushik prepared an especially good article on new features coming to GA. Google updated their java-script about a year ago to support more features and this update starts to float some of those changes to the surface. If you haven’t moved to the new (non urchin) code, you should do so as soon as possible. How can you tell which code you have? In a browser window surf to your website and do a “view source” on any web page, then search for google-analytics.com.  The old urchi...
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Measuring Conversions

I am always surprised when I find businesses measuring Ad effectiveness based on click-thru rate. CTR is a simple measurement of clicks given as a percentage of impressions. That is, for a given volume of ad impressions, some number of readers have clicked-thru to your site. Unfortunately CTR can be very misleading. If you create a gee-wiz ad (such as click here to WIN), you can make your CTR soar, but if 100% of those clicks bounce, or otherwise don't go past your landing page, you have wasted ...
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Monitoring Website Uptime

Many people rely on server logs to monitor up-time or will ping a server from an in-house location. Unfortunately, this is not adequate as there can be many reasons a website is unavailable. In shared hosting environments* your bandwidth and availability is potentially at the mercy of dozens of other websites that may or may not be commercial in nature. However, even in dedicated hosting environments outages occur, modems to go off line, routers fail, and networks go down, making it important...
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Getting Started with Web Analytics Tools

I am often asked about the essentials of setting up a web site. While the discussion usually runs toward getting the right URL, site architecture, and navigation, I don't usually get to talk about another essential part of setting up your website, web analytics. Web analytics is essential to getting your site off the ground. It helps you gauge your progress and, if you record the changes you make as you move forward, web analytics will help you evaluate the effect of those changes over time. ...
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