Google Analytics Should be in Beta - True Beta

Way back on November 22nd, I wrote a post called Google Analytics Goes Free - But There is a Cost, pointing out some of the growing pains that came from the switch to a free service. At that time, their web reports had more than a day's lag. Google stopped accepting new registrations while they addressed the performance issues.

On December 5th, Google published an update on the progress they had made. Things were on the upswing.

But now it's December 24th. More than a month after my original post, Google still hasn't turned new registrations back on. They also haven't updated their status page in more than 19 days.

The most surprising thing about this is how inconsistent the service has been compared to other Google services. There are many more reliable Google services labeled as Beta, including News, Gmail, Froogle, and Groups. Traffick's Andrew Goodman wrote a blog post (still in beta) addressing Google's definition of beta: "Could it be that "beta" is code for "full product release," and vice-versa?"

If that's the case, Google, please put Google Analytics back into beta.

Oh indeed you are right. I'm still waiting for google to accept new registration, however, im afraid that as soon as that has happened, it will come up to the next wave of registrations.. anyway im still not sure whether i should provide google with so much confidential information !?

You raise an interesting point. I'll probably write about that at a later date, but for now, I'm fairly confident that Google can already make fairly sound estimates of your site's traffic, conversion rates, and probably average order size based on the data they gather from Google Toolbar users. Not as precise as what Analytics would tell them, but pretty darn good.

We have just installed google analytics on our website. The classic that is the old format
is much easier for us as we are new to it. However the beta one is a bit complex.

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