The world of webmasters stumbled lately with joy and excitement as Google started to offer recently acquired Urchin’s site analysis product for free, newly named Google Analytics.
Up until then, there were some free tools for site analytics which were not satisfactory enough for the professional webmasters. The paid services on the other hand, even chip ones, did not usually hit the typical webmaster as worth the money.
With Google Analytics, webmasters interested in their many aspects of site performance can now have it for free, and not just lame analytics rather excellent Urchin’s data.
Did you ever stop to think why Google offers this wonderful tool for free?
Google’s proposition talks about improving your site and increase marketing ROI. They say they want you to attract more of the traffic you are looking for, and help you turn more visitors into customers. They say that using Analytics you will be able to learn which online marketing initiatives are cost effective and see how visitors actually interact with your site. Make informed site design improvements, drive targeted traffic, and increase your conversions and profits.
But what’s in it for Google? Is all they care about is helping you, assuming that your better performance will help your business with Google?
Yes and No.
Yes – because Google is right. Using Analytics wisely will help you to achieve all that they say you will. It’s an excellent tool for you.
Do they really care about your ROI? I am not sure, but if you’re happy, and obviously the majority of your online ad budget is spent on Google AdWords, then they are happy too. You may accidentally find out that Overture or any other vendor serves you better, but this will not happen often. AdWords is the best contextual advertising service there is today and Google knows that.
Is this sufficient for Google to invest in acquiring Urchin and merge their product with Google’s?
That brings us to the ‘No’ part of the answer.
Google has definitely another motivation. Letting you using this excellent product for free just doesn’t justify the investment. What Google really wants to achieve by letting you use Analytics is… means to fight Click Fraud.
Surprising, right?
If you think about it for a second, you will not be so surprised. Click fraud is the most dangerous threat to Google’s business. Business competitors such as Yahoo! and MSN together do not form a threat on Google’s core business as the Click Fraud issue.
Google’s business success lies in the fact that they have managed to invent an advertising network that employs fair market wise pricing method. Click Fraud may turn all AdWords to an empty market place.
And what does Analytics have to do with Click Fraud? The explanation is very simple. The major task in Click Fraud fighting is identifying a click as a fraud. In the days before Analytics, whenever a click occurred on any AdWords ad, Google lost track of it. They couldn’t tell what the result of that click in the customer’s site was. They could run as many algorithms as they wanted to identify fraud clicks, but based only upon statistical data and click behavior assumptions they couldn’t do such a great job.
Now, with Google Analytics spreading amongst AdWords clients’ sites, the mission becomes possible. Google can now examine each click path and realize its quality. Did the clicker hit “Back” just upon entering the site? That doesn’t sound like a good click. Did the click lead to a sale or to a form completion? That sounds like an excellent click.
So this is why we have Analytics. The guys in Google are hoping that they day will come and most AdWords client will use Analytics, helping Google unknowingly to fight Click Fraud.
So is Google acting cunningly? No.
First of all, it is not obligatory for a business to expose its goals to anyone. And secondly, AdWords clients will benefit from Google’s fight in Click Fraud. Eventually, AdWords clients will not have to pay for low quality clicks and Google genius advertising model will still hold.
Just don’t take anything as granted. When a giant offers you a candy, it isn’t necessarily because it cares so much for your joy.
