Users antsy over Google Analytics problems

IDG News Service -

A string of recent technical problems at Google Inc.'s Analytics service has webmasters and publishers concerned about the Web site traffic monitoring service.

The latest bump lasted about two days, during which Web traffic data wasn't delivered to affected accounts, leaving webmasters and publishers in the dark about their sites' usage.

Although the blackout was resolved Monday evening and no data was lost, according to Google, it affected users' ability to use traffic statistics to make business and design decisions about their sites.

"It's quite inconvenient because my fellow producers and I file weekly reports of our statistics, and inaccurate statistics render our reports useless," wrote Chrissy Icamina, a Web and mobile producer at FHM Philippines, in an e-mail interview.

The latest problem was the fourth service disruption for Google Analytics in July alone. Coupled with others in recent months, including a major one in May, the problems have users concerned about the stability of the service.

FHM Philippines, a men's magazine, uploads new content several times a day to its site. It has been using Google Analytics for more than a year to make decisions about Web site changes, as well as to gather traffic data for advertisers.

Icamina is fine with Google Analytics not being a real-time provider of traffic statistics, but she said the situation becomes unacceptable when the service fails to deliver data for more than 24 hours, as was the case in this latest incident.

"It's a very good stat-tracking system. It's just that these delays -- that have been happening more recently -- are such a hassle," Icamina wrote.

Google didn't offer any explanations for the cause of the latest data outage, which lasted roughly between Saturday evening and Monday evening.

"We are continuing to take steps to minimize the number of processing delays in the future," a Google spokeswoman said Tuesday via e-mail. However, she declined to reveal the number of accounts affected by the apparently widespread problem.

The outage was also disruptive for Tim Trice, publisher of Boost MySpace.com. Trice uses the traffic data Google Analytics compiles to attract potential partners and advertisers.

"The recent downtime of Analytics did cause quite a few problems," Trice, who is based in Houston, wrote in an e-mail interview.

Aside from the performance problems, Trice, who started using Google Analytics at the beginning of this year, said he likes the free service overall. "It seems far better than other free tracking programs available," Trice said.

Even users who weren't seriously inconvenienced noticed the most recent outage.

Jade Skaggs, who has been using Google Analytics for about two years and is the publisher of SpudGames.com, called the recent technical problems a "blemish" on Google Analytics' track record, especially since the service got a major upgrade in May.