I finally dug into GA? and figured out how to take it to the next level!

GA? now checks the entire HTML page to see if it contains Google Analytics code.  Prior to 1.0, it only checked for analytics code within the body of a page.

GA? is a Firefox extension that automatically detects if Google Analytics is installed on a web page and displays the result in your status bar.  For more details see the GA? - Is Google Analytics Installed page.

GA? is also ready for Firefox 3.

Google Analytics recently updated their tracking code. In doing so, my GA? Firefox extension didn’t recognize the newer code. However, with a few new lines of code, the GA? Firefox extension works with the old and new Google tracking code.

Thanks to those who wrote in requesting the update. It really helps me get a feel for who’s using it.

The new version of GA? has been released. The Google Analytics detector now re-checks each page as you switch between tabs to ensure the status bar icon is kept up to date. This was a big enhancement for me as I’ve always got multiple tabs open.

However, with advancements comes a few more bug reports.

1. GA? doesn’t update the status bar icon when switching between windows . Actually this may be a non issue. I’m still thinking that one over.

Google Analytics is a great program, but add in Adobe AIR and it becomes even better with the Google Analytics Reporting Suite module. It’s a stand alone application that gives you direct access into your Google Analytics account with a few great features thrown in.

The first thing I love is the ability to have multiple profiles.

I have a handful of profiles and where as switching between each one isn’t to difficult in Google Analytics, it is a bit tedious. With Google Analytics Reporting Suite, I can save profiles (aka bookmarks) for each account I want to access. Then I just double click and I’m in. No more having to load the GA website, enter a password, choose a profile then a site and then getting to the stats. This is just so much simpler.

To get the best results out of Google Analytics, you need to ensure it’s installed on each page of a website. To automatically check for you, I’ve created a Firefox extension to do all the work.

GA? will put a little icon in the status bar of your Firefox web browser. It will then check each page you load to to see if it has Google Analytics installed. If so, it’ll show a colored bar chart. If Google Analytics doesn’t appear to be installed, it’ll show a gray bar chart.

I’ve been testing and testing site stats ever since Mint 2 came out. I didn’t really want to pay for the upgrade so I ran though a few different services and put them though the tests. I was looking for a quick way to access my visitor stats and in the end, Mint is the best stats program I can find.

I’ve been playing around with Google Analytics’ goals recently and I don’t quite get how they work. They sound easy enough, but yet, they are very confusing.

For example, when you add your goal, it says e.g. http://www.mysite.com/thankyou.html. But on the ‘My site’s pages are dynamically generated. How do I set up funnels and goals?’ page it shows www.example.com/checkout.cgi?page=1 (no http://) and on the expressions page it shows www\.google\.com.

So which is it?

Also, on the expressions page there are 11 expressions available. However none of them have a very good examples or explanations. I guess if I were a hardcore programmer these would make more sense. But what about for the more average person?