Google Analytics integration

[justinhill]

Apologies if this is already on the wishlist but I was too lazy to go through all 11 pages of it right now and I just thought of it.

As Actinic goes from version to version I get the impression that the average user needs to do less and less propeller-head code-wrangling to personalise the setup. In this spirit, couldn't the google analytics thing be included in the base system? A pane in business settings where you enter your GA account number and a couple of tick boxes for whether you want to track nothing, everything or just checkout, and a readme page saying what you need to define at the GA end to get your goal tracking stuff working.

Even twits like me can get the basic javascript thing stuck in somewhere but doing the ecommerce goal/conversion etc thing is more challenging and seems to involve messing with bits of the system that might get overwritten in a future upgrade. I have to assume that we all want the same thing in the end - tracking of basic page access plus conversion data that reflects sales. Even though we all sell different stuff, we all want to know the same things about our sales, basically.

From what I've been reading about it on the forums, it looks like an Actinic bod could pull the whole thing together in an hour, so it's just the additions to the business settings control panel...

[RuralWeb]

Apologies if this is already on the wishlist

As far as I remember its already on the wishlist - chris will know for sure.

[leehack]

I understand where you are coming from Justin, but strongly disagree, there are many reasons IMO why this is not a good idea. One only has to note how hard they found it to keep up with the froogle export changes to see the problems this could cause. There are varying different versions of v8 being used at the moment, imagine if GA needed an update and people on 8.02 now needed to upgrade to 8.5.1 so they got the latest and more importantly functioning GA. GA is an external package and should be kept that way.

What they could do is add it to the AUG or sticky the great threads on the forum, however even this is flawed somewhat as it doesn't allow for changes at GA. They have enough to get right without further responsibilities, imagine the calls to support cos site owners GA wasn't working properly.

When using tools like this you are always going to need a methodical approach in a calm manner and be able to actually read or listen to what you are told. If you can't do that then no matter who or what is done for you, there will always be problems.

[RuralWeb]

I fully agree with lee on this one especially as the Google help files are some of the most detailed I have ever seen - if you cannot follow them then maybe websites are not for you as everything else you need to do requires far more knowledge than integrating analytics.

[justinhill]

OK, message received. I plan to read the google help files, and I plan to review the information on these forums, and I plan to implement all that goal stuff, when I get the time.

I accept your assertion that if google altered their system/requirements it would cause problems for anyone like Actinic who had integrated it into their product (although I really can't see that it could be on on anything like the scale of froogle/googlebase; it's just not the same thing). And on that basis I accept the idea that Actinic might never try to integrate some support for GA into their offering (although I really think it would be a good move for the product).

(For what it's worth by the way, my freely-acknowledged lack of Catalog-programming chops should not be entirely construed as a lack of technical competence per se. Back in the early 80's, before Windows took over the world, I was considered a moderately hot systems programmer and designer and I ran a fairly successful software company producing fairly successful multi-user applications in some pretty demanding industry sectors. These days, I'd much rather leave the programming to someone else and if I can buy something in a box that does what I want right away I'd prefer to have that rather than take one to bits and re-wire it myself. Also, I've been around the block enough times that I'm not embarrassed to ask people who know better, rather than try and re-invent the wheel.)

[dave_finlayson]

I understand where you are coming from Justin, but strongly disagree, there are many reasons IMO why this is not a good idea. One only has to note how hard they found it to keep up with the froogle export changes to see the problems this could cause. There are varying different versions of v8 being used at the moment, imagine if GA needed an update and people on 8.02 now needed to upgrade to 8.5.1 so they got the latest and more importantly functioning GA

Lee,

I agree wholeheartedly, but being the devils advocate for a moment, surely if they did integrate it (and my bets would be there will be some intergration in v9), any changes in GA would only mean template changes within Actinic, perhaps updateable by a design snapshot release of some sort? Surely it wouldn't require a software rewrite like the Froogle Export?

[leehack]

Dave in an ideal world i'd agree and i may be wrong, but actinic are not dynamic to move on things that quick IMO. I can imagine people getting huffy in the forum waiting for updates, only for it to be rushed and affect something else through not being tested.

Conversely, i would say that the froogle export should have been inifinitely easier to keep up to date with, but it wasn't, for whatever reasons. Who knows what they think at times, we also cannot begin to understand their infrastructure, it must be a nightmare for them at times trying to apportion staff to certain tasks. Can you imagine Google launching something tonight and actinic jumping into action tomorrow morning and having it for us by Friday by way of a snapshot? i can't personally.

GA on a site is not paramount to a site's operation, in the not too distant future, Google will turn all this data they have collected back on the site owners and use it to their advantage IMO. For the time being, i want actinic fully focused on getting their software where it should be, they can ill afford any distractions like this IMO, they probably have their most important 12 months ever ahead of them.

It will be released on 8.5.2 now you see lol.

[completerookie]

design snapshot release of some sort?

waste of time , design snapshots don't work and until they re-think some of the concepts behind the snapshots, it never will.

[RuralWeb]

Google will turn all this data they have collected back on the site owners and use it to their advantage

They already are! - certain aspects of GA are now built into the SERP algorithum so people should be very carefull about GA as it now has the capability of affecting your rankings.

Jumping on the GA bandwagon can be costly - remember you never get anything for free and G are certainly not giving GA away for no reason - just think about the data they are able to get about your site.

[leehack]

Nothing in that area would surprise me, which is why it was removed from my site a long time ago. Maybe i'm paranoid, apparently not, there are few things in life that are free and GA (for me) was not one of them.

[pinbrook]

I can only see an attempt at integrating GA code as being tantamount to suicide, Actinic's patches do not come out often enough to keep up with small tweaks constantly released by google. Afterall the only constant thing in life, is change.

I am sure that all developers would strip out the actinic code if it were there and hand code (think css)

The only result if actinic were daft enough to do it - even i don't think they are that daft - would be to disable peoples accounts during the long wait for Actinic to react.

[cdicken]

Thanks for the feedback and ideas - very useful stuff.