Google Analytics were first introduced in November of 2005. The service is free for websites that generate fewer than 10 million hits per month. Google Analytics allow page managers to monitor a number of components on their webpages. The company breaks down the benefits of the service’s use in their support pages:

In order to set up an account with Google Analytics, the first step is to have a Gmail account. The next step is to activate Google Analytics by signing up on their website. Page managers are provided with this left panel navigation menu:

The “Real-Time” tab has an Overview feature that allows the manager to view live metrics of site activity. It looks like this:

Not only does it state the number of users on the site, but it shows what type of device they are accessing the site from and break it down into percentages. The page manager can also see pageviews per minute and per second, and see what pages the audience is looking at.

Below this it shows a country map, and highlights the geographical area real-time users are accessing content from.

The “Audience” tab allows the page manager to have an overview of past sessions by either hour, day, week or month. It looks like this:

Below this, the manager can view different elements of their page demographic. Below, active cities have been highlighted:

These are just few of the many features Google analytics has to offer. Metrics are broken down even further and can also provide information like user Bounce Rate or even show how long users spend on the site before leaving. It also breaks down age and sex demographics amongst other things.

Who uses it?
Both the News-Gazette and WILL are using Google Analytics to monitor their content. Through Google Analytics, WILL has found that people are no longer accessing their webpage directly, but are instead coming from other sources like social media platforms. WCIA is using Adobe Analytics.