An ounce of deception
It is clear that Google Analytics supports the process of exploration extremely well. It is rare to enter into a site analysis with a complete picture of what you need to know. You may have specific activities or groups that you are keeping watch on, but exploration – jumping from group to group, drilling down, comparing – is the only way to discover the unexpected.
The other key elements of web analysis are present in Google Analytics 2.0 at the same level of depth and usability. A dedicated ecommerce section allows you to track conversion goals and display the conversion funnels pioneered by WebTrends. Simple code is provided for your shopping carts to enable financial analysis of sales if you wish.
Site design can be assessed via overlays that appear over your website and show which links were clicked and how they contributed to conversions. This system does deceive a little, however. It is not really analyzing each individual link. If multiple links or images go to the same page, they will appear individually analyzed, but in fact they are all treated as one and the same.
Management reporting is also catered for extremely well. Most people use web analytics not to manage and improve their site, but merely to create reports they never look at for their managers, who also never look at them. Google makes this pointless process very easy. You can create mailing lists so reports can be emailed, create user-access accounts so people can see the reports online and schedule regular report runs.
Thus in a few minutes, you can generate a complex reporting schedule and information flow that will fool the organization into thinking it has a handle on its websites.
Next: Winner takes all