Every agrees that Google Analytics is a great stats program. I used to use it when it was still called Urchin - back in the day before Google bought it. But there are some things you should be aware of when you have it on your website.
You don't want your own surfing to affect your website's stats. As website owners, it's good to check out your own website to see how it's performing or see what changes you want to have done. You just don't want your own surfing to affect your stats because you want to see how many other people actually come to your website. There are a few ways to set this up.
First you could set up a filter using your IP address. This is right in Google Analytics. Go to "Filter Management" and then add a filter. You want to "Exclude" traffic from the IP address" "that are equal to" and then add your IP address and click "Save Changes."
You will have to do this on each computer that you use to surf the website. That's one problem. Also, you might not have the same IP address all the time on your computer. It might be dynamic. Most offices today have dedicated IP addresses while connections at home are generally dynamic. You either have to find all the IP addresses that you might be using or use another method (below). To find out what your IP address is, go here.
Secondly, there's another way to make sure whatever computer you are using does not affect your Google Analytics results. You can "opt out" of Google Analytics. This is in place mainly for people really concerned with privacy issues. Google gives people a way to block the Google Analytics cookie for all websites they visit that use Google Analytics. The only real downside is that with other websites you visit that use Google Analytics, your stats are not showing up in their reports, so it skews their stats - but that's probably not a concern that you have.
Here are the links to opt out of Google Analytics:
And if need help installing Google Analytics on your website, give us a shout!
-Tony
