June 13, 2007

New Google Analytics Features Include These Clickable URLs As first reported on the Official Google Analytics Blog, and then picked up pretty much everywhere else other than our own blog here, Google Analytics has seen its first minor feature update since the launch of the new user interface. While we certainly weren't first to break the news†, due mostly to putting the finishing touches on our updated Google Analytics training series, I did want to post my top three favorite improvements after the jump.

Hourly Reporting, on the advice of pretty much anyone who had ever used the hourly report from the initial Google Analytics interface. For those who frequented the Google Analytics usenet group, the lack of this handy feature was a huge point of contention. Now we can move on to bigger and better complaints, right, Robbin? ;)
Increase in the number of data rows per page, because occasionally it's helpful to see a big chunk of your data all together (and even more helpful to be able to export more than a hundred lines to to PDF).
Bounce Rate Percent Change color coding, because green is good and red is baaad. It's nice that I no longer need to explain to our clients that numbers in in green are good, except for bounce rate, where red is good... but red is bad for everything else. Now the color coding is universal.

You've also got clickable URLs in the reports (see the image above), which make it easy to quickly access a page on your site from the report. Cross segmenting by network location is possible, and there's a tighter, easier AdWords integration. Take a look at the full list of changes.

This isn't the end of improvements for Google Analytics. Keep using the new interface and keep making suggestions. If you've got a blog, post your wishlist. Enter Robbin's contest. Post your biggest gripes or favorite new features in the comments below, and we promise to take them to heart and keep passing them on to Google.

† Second to the official post, my blog reader gives that credit to Jordan from Marketing Pilgrim, who must check her feed reader more often than me... which is no small feat.

Posted by Michael Harrison, Analytics and Optimization Specialist at 5:07 PM

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Comments

I'm the winner! Hooray! Thank you. It's all the recognition I'll ever get for staring at my feed reader all day yesterday, willing it to get more stories.

Posted by: Jordan McCollum at June 13, 2007 6:14 PM

I was checking my reader on my phone in the doctor's office yesterday. Soon, they'll find a way to just beam RSS feeds straight into your brain. ;)

Posted by: Michael Harrison at June 14, 2007 9:19 AM

Can't say enough good about the new interface.

I find it much easier to get around in, more useful information is readily available and it's really the meat of what a webmaster needs to make decisions.

Analytics allows me to easy scan the relevant data form my many sites and compare like parameters across many domains quickly. On a related note, I'm loving the link data available through Webmaster central now, too. :)

The data shown by Google via these tools is exactly what you need if you're running things as a business.

One downside, IMO, is that it seems Analytics under-estimates traffic numbers. Not sure why, but my other traffic stats platform shows markedly different numbers, though the trends remain the same.

Posted by: Online Marketing Help at July 9, 2007 11:01 AM