30+ Google Analytics Tools, Goals, Segments, Filters, Hacks & Resources

By Tad Chef on March 12, 2009 in google analytics, website analytics with 42 Comments

Google Analytics is used by most of us search marketers with the exception of the paranoid and even a growing number of top 500 websites. This free web analytics suite is just too tempting not be used. It’s very advanced compared to many other, especially free web analytics tools. Google Analytics has some significant flaws and shortcomings though.

Google Analytics tools, tips & tricks
CC Image Credit: Flickr

Google Analytics can’t track full referers right by itself which is especially a shame in connection with StumbleUpon traffic
it counts one user as dozens by counting recurring visits as referring ones from the source s/he came from initially
it barely can see most of Twitter and short URL traffic which only gets noticed as traffic without source (type in traffic)

To name just a few.

For these and other problems there are solutions out there some well known some still quite “underground”. Also there are lots of advanced functions in GA you have to set up first before you can use them.

Most important here are goals which allow you to track conversions in the first place.

Last but not least there are quite a few Greasemonkey scripts that enhance the Google Analytics interface on the client side that is in your browser.

So check out the 30+ Google Analytics Tools, Goals, Segments, Filters, Hacks & Resources:

Tools

Goals & Segments

Filters

Hacks

SEOptimise GA tips

Google Analytics resources lists

Of course I haven’t tried all of them myself, they’re too many. Those I haven’t tried yet are mostly from trustworthy sources. Just in case they have issues or if you know better Google Analytics tips add them in the comments. They might end up in the list.

SEO 2.0 living and working in Germany as a blog & SEO consultant. I'm blogging in English for SEO blogs around the world. My real name is Tadeusz Szewczyk but my friends who don't speak Polish - my mother tongue - call me Tad Chef or onreact.

42 Comments

Got something to say? Feel free, I want to hear from you! Leave a Comment

Ran says:

March 13, 2009 at 8:46 am ·

Great round up guys! I’d consider adding a few mentions about Google Analytics KPIs and you’ve got here quite possibly the ultimate list ;)
Paul Anthony says:

March 13, 2009 at 9:35 am ·

Great post guys,

There is a lack of education out there for Google Analytics (within Google’s documentation) and getting the most out of it. I’ll be examining this one in depth!

Bookmarked. ;o)
dan says:

March 13, 2009 at 10:41 am ·

great list!

broken link just after the image should be: http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2008/06/is-google-analytics-cheating-you-use-alternatives.html

thanks for all of these – ‘initial referrer’ hack especially interesting.

dan
Gidseo says:

March 13, 2009 at 1:08 pm ·

This is probably the best post I’ve read this year.
Thank you for a shedload of useful stuff.
Agent SEO says:

March 13, 2009 at 1:26 pm ·

Good list. I find that although Google Analytics is very self-explanatory, there is so much more that I could be doing. There needs to be more out there to help you squeeze more our of your GA account!

Thanks…
Timothy says:

March 13, 2009 at 1:49 pm ·

Nice list. Some of these sure will be useful.
srinivas says:

March 13, 2009 at 7:08 pm ·

Hi
Good list very useful for startups
Tad Chef says: (Author)

March 13, 2009 at 7:34 pm ·

Thanks Dan for the hint, it seems WordPress is somehow changing internal links from absolute to relative ones resulting in broken internal links each time.

Thanks all for the appreciation!
Listorbit says:

March 17, 2009 at 7:16 am ·

Bucket full of Information just need to implement it.
Dawid Ryba says:

March 19, 2009 at 10:07 am ·

Great post guys,
Good list very useful for startups
Dave Lakins says:

March 19, 2009 at 4:26 pm ·

Great list – thanks Guys. We recently had a phone conference with one of the guys at Google Adwords who showed us some pretty neat filtering tips for tracking e-commerce conversions within the same campaign. From first glances it is difficult to percieve the awesome amount of information you can get from Analytics.
Dave says:

January 28, 2010 at 7:01 pm ·

You can also use this firefox extension to see what tools are running on the browsed sit and what value it’s reporting: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4001
Cazare Sibiu says:

March 29, 2010 at 5:20 pm ·

Ok this info really helped .. thanks for sharing ..:)
Campaignsync says:

April 24, 2010 at 5:27 am ·

Great list! Please consider adding Campaignsync to your list. Campaignsync will automatically tag your Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns for keyword tracking in Google Analytics. Give it a try and let us know what you think it’s free!
Hosting says:

August 31, 2010 at 1:12 am ·

We are using google analytics – help us to know the traffic sources, traffic for the particular keyword, sales, goals etc. We have fixed our goal to our order page – very useful to track

Ahsima
João Correia says:

October 22, 2010 at 11:33 am ·

Check the PHP Google Analytics Cookie Parser, maybe it will fit under Tools.

http://joaocorreia.pt/google-analytics-scripts/google-analytics-php-cookie-parser/#english

Cheers
Joao
Luis says:

May 17, 2011 at 8:11 pm ·

I found this application to be quite useful to meet some requirements I couldn’t with Google Analytics: http://www.reportingsuite.com
Rakesh says:

October 24, 2011 at 3:59 pm ·

Since GA can process 50k URL on daily basis and if this limit exceeds 50k, then additional URLs are grouped under (other). We have worked out a hack which solves this problem. Please visit this URL to see how this works :

http://www.tatvic.com/blog/google-analytics-troubleshooting-other-problem-content-report/