Measuring Success

There are 2 main things that Google Analytics cannot do:

1. No regionalisation of Search Engines for SEO – previous post
2. No automatic tracking of file downloads and outbound links – this post…

The first is an major limitation for Search Marketers requiring regional search engine detail for SEO campaigns; The second is a real pain in the bum for webmasters of content heavy websites who need to track non-standard click throughs (file downloads, mailto, outbound links).

However, Google Analytics is a very flexible product and a little bit of custom JavaScript can go a long way – so I have developed JavaScript “extensions” to over come these limitations…

For those that are interested e-books (great for copy & pasting code) there is a PDF version of the Google Analytics book – Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics book, purchasable from Wiley.

If you have a copy of Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics, or are a potential reader, would you prefer it in your local language? I have always assumed that a local language is preferred. However, I ask because when translated, I loose editorial control of the text and screenshots that can result in a degrade in book quality.

Just to let you know that I have finally gotten round to updating the original combined tracking script hack I had for urchin.js to the new ga.js. Essentially the combined tracking script is a modification of the GATC so that it automatically tracks: outbound links – Automatically file downloads – Automatically mailto links – Automatically Therefore, instead of having to manually modify such links by adding an onClick event handler to your ‘a’ tags, this script will do it all for you. April 2011 – New async hack launchedThis hack has been completely revise for the latest GA async code. Further info >>   Why is this necessary? Outbound links (links to other websites from yours), file downloads (e.g. PDFs, exe, xls etc.) and mailto links (links to an email address) can be important indicators as to whether your site is engaging with visitors. If so, you will certainly want [...]