All your stats are belong to us
by Craig Raw
How long before your website stats become public domain? The entrance of Google Analytics into the search world is no small thing - now Google will have far more information than ever to determine if a site is effective. After all, that is the holy grail that every search engine is looking for to determine its rankings. It is reasonable to suppose that other search giants will come out similar offerings - the case is too compelling to ignore.
The problem is, not every site will be tracked by Google Analytics. Some will be tracked by its competitors, leaving Google in an interesting position - should it favour those sites it knows have good conversion? This would improve the search results without question, at the risk of penalising those who have opted for another stats package. Adwords already provides features to track a PPC click through to conversion - does Google use this information elsewhere?
A logical outcome to the scenario is this - we will need to tell all the search giants that our websites can convert visitors into customers, how many and how often. This information may be given directly or through a neutral intermediary, but it is surely necessary as search becomes an ever more important part of our lives. Who knows, it may even become law someday. Then, of course, we have the problem of authenticity - but that's a discussion for another day.
Comments
post a commentI think that all sites have some kind of conversion goal. Sometimes, on a one page site, its not even measurable. But if the goal is just to provide information, its still valid.
Posted by Craig on 2006/02/01
What about comment spam on this blog? What does penis enlagrement have to do with Analytics?
Posted by rafiq on 2006/06/24
interesting, I'm being using google analytic. When I first started, I"m kind of excited about the free service, but after a while, I'm not sure whether the expose my website traffic stat information will hurt my search ranking or not. Well, only time can tell.
Posted by ken on 2007/04/19
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what about websites that don't use conversion as part of their strategy - blogs, institutions, wikipedia-type sites? i don't think that your site analytics would be tracked by google without your consent?
Posted by scott on 2006/01/24