Google never sites still. Like a fidgety child who’s diagnosed with ADHD but is really just too smart to be challenged by the class’s curriculum, Google is always working on side projects. This is declared boldly in their “release early, iterate often” philosophy, and can be seen in more practical demonstration with features like the ever-improving Google Analytics. Analytics is seeing an especially large boost in features thanks to the creation of an entirely new version, available for daring beta users today. One area of improvement for the new Analytics is the Overview section.
The Analytics Overview, the page users go to when they want to get a sense of their site’s performance at a glance, is one of the oldest and most venerated parts of the Analytics experience. Now it will be even more praiseworthy thanks to the addition of the following extras:
- A new overall layout that places a timeline, aggregate metrics, and reports on a single page.
- The replacement of the classic “line chart” with a “motion chart.”
- The ability to choose a different metric to view using a simple dropdown menu.
- The ability to view an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly report on your charts and metrics by selecting the appropriate option in a simple dropdown.
- The option to compare two sets of metrics.
- The ability to view multiple different reports within the Overview page.
- The addition of the “Intelligence Overview,” a new report that comes from an automatic Google scan of your analytics. This scan detects any abnormal behavior that may be worthy of your attention, but can also be customized to report on any specific data you’re interested in.
Enabling the new version of Analytics is easy: just log into Analytics as normal and look for the “New Version” option at the top-right corner. Click on this option, follow the simple prompts, and you’ll have added all the advantages of the new Overview as well as a number of additional Analytics features.
[via the Google Analytics Blog]
