Google is now giving away Urchin. They'll track your stats for free

all your figures are belong to us...

[oddsod]

Google Analytics [webmasterworld.com]: Put the javascript code on your pages and Google will give you a stats analysis that people are now paying hundreds/thousands for. And they'll charge you zilch.

Who wants to be the first turkey? :)

It's good that it's free but is this giving Google a bit too much of information? Is the giveaway purely out of the goodness of their heart... or do they have something very valuable to gain in return?

Does having Adsense on the site (with smartpricing) impact on your decision?

[jomaxx]

I suppose it could affect your AdSense account or even your Google rankings in some way, but stickiness in itself is a discredited concept. The stickiest sites are forums, game sites, photo galleries, am-I-hot-or-not sites, etc. I doubt very much Google would want to give these sites a boost in the rankings.

[Jane_Doe]

Like church and state, I think stats tracking and search engine listings are best kept as separate as possible. :)

[RammsteinNicCage]

If a site has an article that I found directly via google, I sit down and read it for half an hour, then I close my browser - what would Urchin see? Me going to one page and then nothing, assuming I had little interest in the site? Or can it somehow tell that I'm sitting idle on the site reading the article?

Jennifer

[Ankhenaton]

Jennifer they would make statistical approximations of user behaviour [ie how many do what you do just go on 1 page]. But stickyness is obviously related to website content etc. They would then make mathematical model and attribute weight to each variable etc.

For us adsense users I assume they have this data and the models anyway.

Also if you check your cookies. Half of them are from Google related services. I also found a google referrer cookie with a webmasterworld thread as content :\.

[netchicken1]

Anything I can do to make my site more known in google I will do it.

What is there to lose? I WANT all of my pages in Google's databases as they provide visitors and therefore life.

Even though I use AWstats which are good, I am in ....

[Ankhenaton]

With mediabot + sitemaps [generated from access.logs] Google should already know everything.

I generate my sitemaps via cron every night with automatic Google notification, so Google should already know everything there is.

I guess Urchin is for all non technical webmasters?

[ann]

The thing that bothers me about this whole Urchin thing is this.

Google has said that eventually (I read it somewhere on Google) they planned to offer search based on the users habits. Is that going to do our stats or our sites any good in the serps?

If I have a certain number of people visiting my sites and Google only has me in the profiles of those people then how in the world am I going to grow?

Oh sure they will have the regular serps for those who choose a different search term but even they may be oriented to the searchers profile.....

Doesn't sound too good to me but then that is just my opinion.

Ann

[deepesh]

Gr8!, Also, wont it help in disabled accounts cases coz then google will have their own stat logs to check.

[icedowl]

Is anyone seeing data in their reports yet?

[deepesh]

Is anyone seeing data in their reports yet?

It says reports will be shown after 12 hours of data is collected.

[icedowl]

It's been well over 12 hours and I'm not seeing any data. Might be that it's overloaded with work since there were probably a lot of sign-ups. I can wait and it'll probably get caught up eventually.

[Nik_in_CA]

It's been 24 hours now that I updated the code in 10 sites that I track. No data showing up yet. Also, I compared the data in the new Google Analytics to the old Urchin for last week, and the week prior, (you can still access the old Urchin for historical data), and the data is different! I don't know which information is accurate, or even why it would be different.

Anyone else experience this?

[dzcap]

Nothing here also, I am using multiple trackers though so this hasn't affected me that much. =D

[Ankhenaton]

Google has said that eventually (I read it somewhere on Google) they planned to offer search based on the users habits. Is that going to do our stats or our sites any good in the serps?

nope ... and it lowers the chances of new random visitors .. that might like your site..

Also that G prechews what I might be interested in with no information what they do isn't too good ...

Maybe we will have a MS Paperclip disaster .. it seems we are heading this way ...

[edward301]

18-20 hours still registering 12 hours

Ive also noticed you dont stay logged in - Is this jst firefox not liking the cookie or is it like this for everyone?

I do agree with jetteroheller I think it would be great if you could integrate adsense and urchin javacript code.

Im sure they could pull alot more information from the data that they could collect, such as the percentage ctr from people coming from search engines (and keywords) as opposed to specific website referals, so you could focus your time on promoting/developing the traffic source which gives you the majority of your earnings.

[bts111]

I couldn't care less what Google know about me or my sites -- I am more than happy to use their product for free.

I think that there may be a few people thinking the same way as there seems to be a few little glitches.

[21_blue]

I think we must have broken it. It keeps saying 'tracking status unknown', but we've checked and the code is in the home web page as well as most others. Also, some of the help buttons return either page not found or take you to an unhelpful page (eg: on the page linked by the "?" next to "default page", I can't find any reference to "default page").

Urchins are quite fragile creatures, I believe. Perhaps it'll be feeling better tomorrow...

[ning]

My sites was submitted and confirmed implemented correct. It's a bit over 26 hours now and no stats yet.

[FrostyMug]

Signed up yesterday, still no stats. But just 10 hours for me.

[MetalType]

Implemented the code early hours of this morning, still no stats!

[Mentat]

Yep, I think they need an upgrade :(
I've implemented the code ~ 28 hours ago and still no info..

Analytics has been successfully installed and data is being gathered now. Your first reports will be ready within twelve hours

They should remove this notice :)

[21_blue]

Progress :-) It now says the site is validated. Took about 7 hours. Perhaps someone has put some more coal in the boiler :-))

[Hobbs]

I just removed the code, for a day and a half and since inserting the code, I stopped receiving any visitors via yahoo. I do not think it could be anything else since nothing else has changed on that site.

[perldiver]

I just checked, I'm still getting my normal number of Yahoo visits (1/4 approximately the number of Google visits).

[ebuilder]

Just removed the code on a site that I spent 2 hours adding it to yesterday. Maybe will try it when they get it working. I can't believe how impatient I have become. I guess I just expected it to work after I went to the trouble of signing up.

[ann]

Sorry folks,

I see major lawsuits on the horizon for Google and just maybe all the others who are aiding and abetting them by helping collect the data.

I know if I was someone important, or rich, or famous and I used the web I would be horrified to find out everything I did on the web was stored in a datbase somewhere with only a companies name and reputation to back up a privacy policy concerning an action I never agreed to.

Be wary folks, I want to see this played out before I leap.

I can just image in a years time Google reporting, "All your base am belong to ME!"

Ann

[webnoob]

I see major lawsuits on the horizon for Google and just maybe all the others who are aiding and abetting them by helping collect the data.

you have a choice to use it, or not. 'nuff said.

[GalaxyBay]

Sorry to burst your bubble ann but everywhere you go on the web your information is being tracked. ONLINE and OFF. Urchin and Google aren't doing anything new, server logs have existed since the early beginings of the internet. The simple action of visiting a website will cause an interaction between your ip and that of the host server, triggering a log of your ip being created. Without this the web wouldn't be as functional is it is today. If your paranoid of your information being tracked there are many ways to prevent it such as the use of proxy servers, anonymizers websites, browser plugins and tools. Just don't expect all the functions of a given website would be operational to you while using such tools.

No one is being forced to use Urchin, just as much as no one is forcing you to let your information or online surfing habits being tracked. This is a tool which once people payed thousands of dollars per month to have and Google is offering if for free to the public. Why conjure up all these conspiracy theories about Google, and not just take advantage of this great tool to better your website.

Unfortunately, I too have installed this tool on one of my domains and it shows that it has been installed properly. It has been over 36hrs now and still no data has shown up in the report.

[bts111]

Paranoia is becoming rife in this place.

[aeiouy]

Sorry folks,

I see major lawsuits on the horizon for Google and just maybe all the others who are aiding and abetting them by helping collect the data.

I know if I was someone important, or rich, or famous and I used the web I would be horrified to find out everything I did on the web was stored in a datbase somewhere with only a companies name and reputation to back up a privacy policy concerning an action I never agreed to.

Be wary folks, I want to see this played out before I leap.

I can just image in a years time Google reporting, "All your base am belong to ME!"

Well good luck with that. I have the right to know who is on MY website and what they are doing. If you don't want people to know what you are doing then stay off their lawn.

Sorry, but I think you got this wrong. Like I said, I am entitled to be able to track visitors on MY web page. You are not entitled to hide yourself and disallow me from doing so.

This tracks how and what you do while visiting my site.. Not what you do in your freetime or how you treat your wife and kids. If you feel your are entitled to privacy in such matters you are simply wrong.

This would be akin to saying there are going to be lawsuits for retail stores who use video surveillance or have in-store security.