Like anything, Google Analytics has its fans and its critics, and both sides may distort the truth a little to support their position. But Google recently named ten specific myths about Analytics and embarked on a special effort to debunk them.
Now, posting Google’s arguments here might amount to preaching to the choir. Also, since the post on the Google Analytics Blog is about 1,500 words long, reading them all would take up a bit of your time. So here are the ten myths (as identified by Google), plain and simple:
1: “You get what you pay for.” Google Analytics is free, which means the system is down a lot
2: Google Analytics is basic and doesn’t have any “advanced” features or metrics
3: Google Analytics only supports third-party cookies
4: Google Analytics is not really accurate
5: It’s not possible to export your data from Google Analytics
6: With Google Analytics you can’t control your data
7: There is no professional support for Google Analytics
8: Google Analytics does not support A/B or multivariate testing and isn’t well-integrated with other tools
9: You can’t segment data in Google Analytics
10: You have to spend a lot of money to get “real” web analytics
If any of these statements sound accurate to you, click through to the original post to get Google’s take. Otherwise, supporters of Google Analytics may just find it interesting that these matters were highlighted at all.
Google appears to be going after new customers by addressing some very basic issues. This could indicate that the company’s trying to expand the service’s reach by introducing it to a whole new group of not-especially-tech-savvy individuals.
