Google Analytics Is Sloooooow

I'd love to see how many people signed up for Google analytics yesterday because I've never seen such slow response times from a service Google provided. Well, that is if you don't count their free Google API, that's about the worst api in the industry but hey, it's free so I really can't complain.

I've penned a few thoughts based on some of the comments and feedback offered on yesterday's post regarding Google's forray into the free web stats space.

Rob is concerned about privacy issues and I don't blame him. There are definitely some privacy concerns here and I thought it was funny that just like every other service Google offers they're pointing you to their standard privacy policy and terms of service.

I challenge anyone out there reading this that knows a thing or two about the Date-Modified http header to crawl Google's privacy policy and terms of service and begin comparing that document over time. My guess is that they're changing that privacy policy and terms of service each time they launch a new application. However, if they are not, then kudos to them. That means they're staying true to their original focus and were able to plan their future moves well in advance and their privacy policy has stood the test of time. I kind of doubt that's the case though. And I think a little grass roots techie experiment will show that.

The Information Google's Getting Now
Prior to you cutting and pasting their tracking code on your site, the only thing Google knew about you were as follows.

I.) All information regarding your web site's infrastructure.
a.) ip addy
b.) how often the site is updated
c.) development languages the site supports
d.) where the site is hosted [not just the country, region, state but place of business as well]
e.) all things search related to your site [ pages indexed, backlinks, update frequency, etc...]
f.) all whois info for your domain name
g.) how much traffic you get from their natural results
h.) how much traffic you get from their AdWords [ppc results]
i.) how much traffic you get from AdSense [ppc results on publisher sites]

II.) Google did not have your site stats information unless your site employs one or more of the following:
a.) you're using their free wifi in San Francisco
b.) you're using AdWords conversion tracking
c.) you're using Urchin site stats already
d.) your web site is hosted at blogspot

III.) Now that they offered free site stats via an Enterprise x 1,000,000,000 install of Urchin
a.) They know the traffic you getting to every page on your site that you put their Urchin js code on.
b.) How many people are interested in their web site stats.
c.) How many blogspot blogs are actually monitored by real people [chances are splogs won't install the scripts but you never know]
d.) They now know their brand is rivaling that of Microsoft since they couldn't handle the demand for their new analytics tool yesterday and every site running the script nearly ground to a halt.
e.) How many Google / Gmail accounts are actually active instead of just placeholders for forwarding emails to other gmail accounts.
f.) and thousands of other key pieces of data.

“Introducing Google Analytics.
Sophisticated. Easy. Free.
And Most Importantly,
It's Sloooooooow!

Yes Google is turning into big brother but you know we'll be here breaking it down, one application launch at a time.