Google Analytics - Alternatives to the problems

Google Analytics was once an indispensable tool for me.  It was free, easy to set up and provided enterprise style analytics.

But after a while the headaches and frustrations of managing multiple sites with this tool becomes evident.

Here are some of Google Analytics flaws:

1. Google Support - does this actually exist ?  Trawling support forums usually leads to the same outcome, bugs and frustrated users waiting years for fixes ... I have very rarely been able to contact a real person from Google.  This is probably the biggest problem, not just with Analytics, but Adwords, Adsense and a whole range of other mission critical Google products for websites.


2. Deleting profiles and accounts without admin access - power users of Analytics will know what I'm talking about here.  You've been managing a clients stats in the past as a report user and then the incompetent customer loses their admin details.  You are stuck forever with this dud account.  There is absolutely no way to delete the profile/ account from your Analytics and it just sits there festering away for years annoying you and Google does not seem to feel it is an issue and can't or wont help.

3. Moving profiles from one account to another is not possible - We've all been through it.  Google Analytics accounts and profiles can be can be confusing at the best of times.  You're never sure the best way to manage it.  But what's worse is that if you make a mistake, you're stuck with it.  There is no way to move a profile from one Google Analytics account to another.  This is a truly terrible situation and a source of frustration for many.  Again, Google seems unwilling to find a solution due to design issues and the problem of Analytics IDs.

4. Exporting and importing data profiles is not possible - This would probably make #3 a little easier and solve a number of other issues, such as archiving and restoring a website statistics profile after a hiatus.  But again it is not possible to export and import data from one profile to another and Google does not seem to have any current plans to support this.

There are obviously more issues but these are my top gripes as from my own perspective they are pretty serious flaws and it is disappointing to many including myself that Google does not address them.

So I've been looking at alternatives to Google Analytics and found a few helpful blogs along the way.  Some look promising, although some are free and it is a question of whether you put up with the above to persist with an otherwise good free product.

Anyway, here are some blogs reviewing some free alternatives to Google Analytics:

http://regulargeek.com/2010/05/29/25-free-google-analytics-alternatives/

http://www.harshajmera.com/blog/2010/04/best-alternatives-to-google-analytics/

Anyway I'll let you know what I find once I've tried a few.

Google Ads with sound ! Offensive and inappropriate but difficult to disable

Google should be ashamed of creeping in Flash Video ads with sound on its Adsense Network.

I was alerted to by members of my thriving online community that everytime they visited my site, a loud spinning wheel sound would start. It was driving users away in their dozens. Noone could work out why my site became offensive all of a sudden.

The culprit - a Google image ad in the footer of my website was displaying online gambling content. Appalled, I went into my Adsense settings to disable the audio, but couldn't find a setting for it and in any case, I would have to recreate the Adsense code, reupload and change the page code on my site.

I searched the Internet to find out what I could do about it, but came up with nothing.

However I decided to contact Google directly to report the offensive ad, after searching extensively I found this link for "Feedback on a Google ad in the content network":
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact=adfeedback

I am yet to receive any response from Google over this.

Apparently offensive ads sometimes slip through the cracks. But when it does, as a publisher, it can do some really bad damage to your sites reputation. To date I was impressed with the performance and relevance of image ads. However as a result of this experience, if Google don't change their policy on Flash ads, I'm considering moving back to text ads or moving away from Adsense altogether to a more discrete context advertising providers (as there are now plenty of Adsense alternatives out there).

New Google Street View Interface Sucks

Yet again, Google have to ruin a completely good idea with a revamp which introduces usability headaches.

Google Street View used to be a really useful way of finding locations. It had the little option in the More Tab and you could click anywhere on the map - simple. Then you could use the arrows on street view to navigate the street scenes. Perfect.

But about a month ago, obsessed with going virtually full screen, Google went and made this handy app almost impossible to use. In the guise of "interface improvement" they've hidden it deep within the Google Maps navigation so that you have to search for an address first then find the link and click on it.
Then the street view appears in a little screen in the bottom corner while the map is still there.

But that's not the really tricky part. The interface for moving around the streets is now extremely awkward. There is an icon that you have to drag and you can no longer simply click on any point of the map. If you happen to miss your target, you almost have to simulate walking there by dragging the person icon over the map which is both tedious and annoying.

They've also introduced a split screen concept which reminds me of Nintendo 64 and makes me want to throw up. Bot the map and the street view become very clumsy to use in this mode.

All I have to say is why Google ... why ruin a perfectly good app with poorly executed ideas. I can only hope they learn from this and either return it to normal or try a different interface.

"Switch to a different publisher ID" doesn't work - More Google uselessness

It would be great if I could scrape up all the pennies from blogs I've published under a different name. But when I try to use the Google standard "Switch to a different publisher ID", it doesn't work and just does nothing.

Judging by their support response, apparently Google aren't really keen to fix it either ....

URL cannot contain a google host - My latest Adsense headache

So with the release of Google Knol, it appears that Google Adsense are no longer allowing you to track Adsense revenue for their web applications, which of course includes the popular Blogger tool ....

It is very disappointing to discover when I already have several sites tracked under Adsense.

When you go to add a new Adsense Channel for Blogger or Knol, the following message appears:
"URL cannot contain a google host"

I have checked the Google blogs and support and they don't mention anything of these new restrictions.

A real shame and very frustrating indeed.

Googling Google and Other Google Issues ...

I wonder if Google have noticed that when you type any query with "Google Help Centre" as keywords, it enters a circular abomination of a search.

Google redirects you to "Google Help" search. But when you click one of the links, it simply refreshes the screen with the keywords "Track ASP" (whatever that means) in the Search field.

Google Help is a misnomer, because it is completely not helpful, nor are their support staff, most of which don't have a clue what they are doing.

I have now waited 3 weeks for a reasoned response to the reason why my whole Adwords My Client Center broke down for me:

I've decided to escalate your issue to our technical team, which will perform a thorough investigation to determine the cause of the issue. These investigations can take some time, but I'll contact you to let you know when our specialists have found a resolution.

But after no response for some time, I emailed out of frustration ans here is the response that I received:

First, I would like to inform you that according to your screenshot which shows that there is no password field available and this is exactly the way it is. I apologize for any inconvenience caused due to any mis communication in the help center.

I note that they have since updated their Help Centre documentation on this, but for a while their documentation was completely wrong and they kept sending me incorrect advice. Unfortunately changing it does nothing to help my situation where clients are in limbo and cannot authorize me to manage their accounts.

And Analytics support is just as bad. It confounds me that in order to delete duplicate unused accounts that the delete button is greyed out and that you have to contact support, but then they don't actually tell you how you can contact support and do their best to discourage you. Then when you do manage to contact support through their online form and provide all the necessary information, this trivial issue requires toing and froing of about 10 emails until they understand what you actually want, but still can't manage to do it.

Hopefully Yahoo or someone else realises just how bad Google's service really is. There is a definite market there for any savvy competitor who can provide reasonable support and customer service. Afterall, it is not rocket science. I have no idea why Google decided to make their login systems so complex and convoluted that even they can't get a grip on them ....

Web browsing with Google Crome, Initial review

I've just been playing around with Google's new beta web browser and I thought I'd write a few things first up.

I'm actually using it right now.

At first glance, I think the whole "less is more" approach to user interface design has been probably a bit overdone.

The back, forward and go navigation icons tripped me up a bit initially, and I kept looking for the drop down list to access my recently visited sites. However I'm impressed with the way the recent and most visited sites with screenshots automatically appear when I open a new tab. Chrome really takes tabbed browsing to the next level.

Importing settings from Firefox seems easy on the surface, but even though I closed Firefox as advised, it still didn't recognise that Firefox was actually closed.

There are some interface bits and pieces to get used to. I found myself accidentally adding sites to my favourites. But Chrome is much quicker and easier to sort bookmarks into folders which is a definite plus.

It has taken a bit of time to get used to less right click options. In particular, I find myself looking for "Refresh" and "Find" options, only to find them in the toolbar. The page icon is a bit counter intuitive and a bit of a catch all and working out what is in either this or the Tool/spanner icon is a bit tricky at first.

I like the inbuilt developer tools and History tab is great.

As a web developer, I'm really interested in how it renders sites. But having checked out many of my favourite sites, I can't yet see any obvious rendering differences between Chrome and Firefox, which is another real positive. However I did notice that while Hotmail works, rich text editors on Blogger and many content management systems (CMS) don't. I'm told this is a problem WebKit, the engine that both Safari and Chrome are partly based on. But more on this to come soon.

Overall, Chrome Beta is not a bad first up effort by Google, although I still think Firefox is better and will probably remain my favourite browser ...

Are Google to busy creating new things to fix their current things ?

That is the impression that I get.

I am starting to get disillusioned by their systems because each one seems to be buggy and in beta, even those that have been around for some time.

Perhaps they are having growth problems, because there are real issues which I can't seem to get any quality support on with Adwords, iGoogle, Blogger and a whole range of other applications for that matter ....

YouTube is great and seems to be going ahead full steam, but most of what Google touches these days is far from turning to gold.

Google Adwords Login Issues driving me nuts

Trying to set up anything Adwords or Adsense related on Google is like trying to teach a baby to walk.

While managing Google's My Client Center, the amount of times I've dealt with emails not being sent by Google for Adwords invitations is unheard of.

And don't get me started on the whole "This account is already a login to another AdWords account. Please select a different Google Account login to access this account." mobius loop.

This thread at Webmaster World typifies the sorts of Google garbage I have to deal with on a daily basis.

Furthermore, Google's own Adwords Learning Center, at least for me, appears to have completely wrong details on how to link accounts. It says it can do it easily by:

1. Retrieve your client's AdWords external Customer ID and account password (which establishes your client's permission to link the account to yours).
2. Log in to your MCC.
3. Click the Link existing account link above your client accounts table.
4. Enter your new client's Customer ID and account password into the appropriate fields.
5. Click Submit.

However in my "My Client Center", there is absolutely no option to enter the account password and when I click submit - nothing happens. No email to the client, no notification in their Adwords account - nothing !

I'm nearly fed up with the then I get support people who don't even know what they are talking about and sent generic mail merged responses. If only they realised that if their systems were usable and they answered their support queries, they might actually get less of them.

No wonder advertisers are moving to Yahoo. Pretty soon I'll be one of them.

Google Street View, Blogger and Firefox

Several times I've tried to use Google Street View and Blogger by embedding street views into my posts.

On Firefox at least, there seems to be some real problems with this. After doing so, you can no longer edit your post. It currently comes up blank in both "Compose" and "Edit HTML" views.

After upgrading to Firefox 3.0, it seemed to fix the problem.

Google Street View - Awesome !

Check out the new Google Street view.

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/

Scary stuff.

Certainly makes touring the world a lot cheaper.
I think it could revolutionise city planning and community consultation.

Big Brother is watching ...

It also opens a minefield of potential problems. Scratch the surface of privacy issues and you'll find a plethora of potential problems. It could make life a whole lot easier for burglars for a start, and not to mention graffiti vandals and a whole range of other nasties ...