This popular web comic by XKCD has found its way into numerous articles on web communications. Does your site give your readers the information they want? Google Analytics offers many ways to analyze your web traffic.

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. 

Answer Questions

Analytics will help you answer all kinds of questions.

• How many people are visiting your site?
• How many of them are coming from on campus? From Columbus? From Ohio?
• How much of your traffic comes from social networking referrals?
• What kinds of devices and browsers do people use on your site?
• What is your most popular content?
• Do people really read your news stories?

Improve Your Site

Once you know the answers, you can make informed decisions about:

• What content do you need to promote (or cut)?
• How can you optimize your navigation for usability?
• How much emphasis you should place on mobile platforms?
  (expected to overtake desktop browsing by 2015)

Basic Access

For those sites with Google Analytics, you can access basic reports under:
Administer > Reports > Google Analytics Charts.

Request Full Access

To access your site's analytics on Google Analytics, you must:

1. Log into google analytics, preferably with your name.n@osu.edu address.  
2. Submit a ticket requesting analytics access and providing us with the name of the site and the user name you use in google analytics.
3. We will then give you access to your site's analytics.