| Yesterday,
Google released a new service with
the name Google
Analytics. Google Analytics is
basically a rebranded version of Urchin,
a web analytics service that Google
purchased in March.
What is Google Analytics?
Like other web analytics services, Google
Analytics is a service that tells you where
visitors to your site are coming from, what
links on the site are getting the most traffic,
what pages visitors are viewing, how long
people stay on the site, which products on
merchant sites are being sold and where people
give up in multistep checkout processes.
The main difference between Google Analytics
and other web analytics services is that
Google Analytics is free. In exchange for
sharing your data with the company, Google
doesn't require you to pay directly for their
analytics service.
Should you use Google Analytics or should
you stay away from it?
Why is Google Analytics free? Does Google
have to give money away? Of course not. Google
will find ways to monetize this service.
There is no such thing as free lunch. Everything,
even what is seemingly free, must be paid
for by somebody in some way.
Google already knows a
lot of things about you. If you also use
their new tracking service, you will tell
Google how much you earn, when you earn it,
which products you sell, how often you sell
them, how much you spend for ads on other
sites and you will reveal much more information
about your online business.
Ask yourself if you want Google to know
that much about you and your company. Do
you really want to share your revenue information
with a company that also wants your advertising
dollars? Do you want to share your revenue
information with any other company at all?
Google officials have declined that they
will use the data to better understand how
much you are willing to pay for ads, based
on conversions. They also claim that they
do not plan to tap into the data as a means
of improving regular search results or to
identify bad sites. Nevertheless, these things
are easily possible if you use Google Analytics.
Google engineer Matt Cutts even writes in
his blog: "Blackhat
SEOs may be leery of using Google for analytics,
but regular site owners should be reassured." That
sounds as if Google might actually use the
information for other purposes.
Think twice before using anything that
is "free"
While Google's new analytics tool looks
great at first glance, you should think twice
before using it. The market power of Google
can make your business highly dependent on
Google if you decide to use all of Google's
services. The more Google knows about
you, the better they can get your money.
If a company in the real world asked you
to tell them everything about your interests,
the shops you visit, the magazines you read,
your full address, your revenue and a lot
of other very detailed and confidential information
about you and your company then you probably
wouldn't give that information to the company.
When it comes to Google, many people happily reveal information
they wouldn't even tell their friends. Be
careful.
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