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Popular, but hardly used: Has Google Analytics been to the detriment of Web Analytics?

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Tom AlbyAuthors Info & Claims

WebSci '23: Proceedings of the 15th ACM Web Science Conference 2023

Pages 304 - 311

https://doi.org/10.1145/3578503.3583601

Published: 30 April 2023 Publication History

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Abstract

Since 2005, Google has been offering a free version of Google Analytics, allowing website owners to access detailed user behavior data. However, while more and more features and tools have been added to the Google measurement suite since then, it is unclear if the free availability of these tools has really helped users to derive actionable insights for their websites. Earlier studies based on a small number of interviews have suggested that users tend to play with the tools as they lack data literacy, but a broader analysis has been missing by now. Our contribution is a large-scale study of Google Analytics implementations to examine what advanced features are used, allowing conclusions to be drawn about the webmasters’ analysis capabilities. In addition, we detail how difficult it has become to conduct such a study due to the arrangements that website owners have to put in place to comply with the GDPR requirements, but also due to the possibility of obfuscation with the latest development of web analytics software.

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Cited By

Alby T(2024)Bridging the Analytics Gap: Optimizing Content Performance using Actionable Knowledge DiscoveryProceedings of the 35th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media10.1145/3648188.3675121(185-192)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3648188.3675121
Puhtila PKivimäki LHeino TMäkelä JRauti SMäkilä T(2024)The Effect of Analytics Tools on Energy Consumption of Websites2024 10th International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S)10.1109/ICT4S64576.2024.00041(335-345)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICT4S64576.2024.00041
Canay ÖKocabıçak Ü(2024)CAWALInformation Processing and Management: an International Journal10.1016/j.ipm.2023.10361761:3Online publication date: 2-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ipm.2023.103617
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Popular, but hardly used: Has Google Analytics been to the detriment of Web Analytics?
1. Information systems
  1. World Wide Web
    1. Web mining
      1. Traffic analysis
      2. Web log analysis

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

WebSci '23: Proceedings of the 15th ACM Web Science Conference 2023

April 2023

373 pages

ISBN:9798400700897

DOI:10.1145/3578503

General Chairs:
Ágnes Horvát
Northwestern University, IL, USA
,
Wendy Hall
University of Southampton, UK
,
Noshir Contractor
Northwestern University, IL, USA
,
Organizing Chair:
Leon Fröhling
GESIS, Germany
,
Program Chairs:
Katherine Ognayova
Rutgers University, NJ, USA
,
Harsh Taneja
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA
,
Ingmar Weber
Saarland University, Germany
,
Publications Chairs:
Kristina Gligori?
Stanford University, CA, USA
,
Yelena Mejova
ISI Foundation, Italy

Copyright © 2023 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Published: 30 April 2023

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WebSci '23: 15th ACM Web Science Conference 2023

April 30 - May 1, 2023

TX, Austin, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 245 of 933 submissions, 26%

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Cited By

Alby T(2024)Bridging the Analytics Gap: Optimizing Content Performance using Actionable Knowledge DiscoveryProceedings of the 35th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media10.1145/3648188.3675121(185-192)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3648188.3675121
Puhtila PKivimäki LHeino TMäkelä JRauti SMäkilä T(2024)The Effect of Analytics Tools on Energy Consumption of Websites2024 10th International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S)10.1109/ICT4S64576.2024.00041(335-345)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICT4S64576.2024.00041
Canay ÖKocabıçak Ü(2024)CAWALInformation Processing and Management: an International Journal10.1016/j.ipm.2023.10361761:3Online publication date: 2-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ipm.2023.103617
Stepanovic SMori LFrancey AMettler T(2024)Transparency in Open Government Data Portals: An Assessment of Web Tracking Practices Across EuropeElectronic Participation10.1007/978-3-031-70804-6_14(209-222)Online publication date: 25-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70804-6_14
Wasilewski AWasilewski A(2024)Analysis of Customer BehaviorMulti-variant User Interfaces in E-commerce10.1007/978-3-031-67758-8_3(45-65)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67758-8_3

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