How will Google Analytics Make Money?

[Help Desk]

There a bunch of Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics) threads here but nobody has focused on how Google is actually going to make this profitable.

Is this worthwhile to Google just for the sake that they get to report on the data? Is this just a "Good Will" product from tools they already used for AdSense and AdWords?

[Toonces51]

I think the theory is that people will be more effective in their AdWords spends, and that they will therefore increase their AdWords spends.

Also, since it can be limited to 5,000,000 page views, they can possibly encourage some sites that may not be using it to sign up for Ad Words to get the unlimited access.

Just my guesses, though...

Toonces51

[digitalpoint]

Google will certainly make it more than pay for itself by the increase in AdWords revenue it draws.

But even beside that, not EVERYTHING a company does is about making money. For example, Google removed AdSense ads from blogspot.com hosted blogs. They certainly didn't make money by doing that.

[Carlito]

Still, I'm a little shocked that they've provided this for free. Displaying ads is one thing, but analyzing every click on what I'm assuming will be a huge percentage of the websites out there will require a phenomenal amount of resources. This is much more than counting clicks by the hour like a service like statcounter might do. This is real web analytics.

That being said, my account still hasn't collected any data yet, so I'll have to see how limited the segmentation and filtering features are, but if it's the full Urchin, I just can't imagine how they'll be able to do it.

Part of me says that Google knows the value of information and they'll spend whatever it takes to get this kind of valuable info, but they are supposedly not going to use this data for improving serps or tracking us webmasters, etc., so I don't see what they're gaining from it.

Of course, it's Google, they've got more money than God. If anyone can do it, they probably can, but I can't see how it will be anything but a drain on them years down the road.

[asr_guy]

... they are supposedly not going to use this data for improving serps or tracking us webmasters, etc., so I don't see what they're gaining from it...

Actually if you read their data protection FAQ answer and also their privacy policy it covers the use of the data. You will see that they can do pretty well whatever they want with our personal and aggregated data. Third parties can also get the aggregated data.

They won't necessarily care about your particular site, but I suspect they could use the data to identify e.g. top 3 consumer products with highest conversions by country during December etc.

That is valuable information for them to start an online shopping portal, for example. I better check if www.googlemall.com is available :)

[aeiouy]

The data is amazingly valuable. It is worth it many times over for google to provide this service in order to get access to all the data. Reality is Google's entire business has always been built around giving their product away for free.

This is simply just another example of that.

[swoop]

...I better check if www.googlemall.com is available :)
Sorry, too late for that one. Just guessing, I imagine that almost any dictionary word domain name preceeded by google is google-gone.

[Toonces51]

Actually, www.googlegone.com and www.google-gone.com appear to still be out there....:D

Toonces51

[Help Desk]

Still, I'm a little shocked that they've provided this for free. Displaying ads is one thing, but analyzing every click on what I'm assuming will be a huge percentage of the websites out there will require a phenomenal amount of resources. This is much more than counting clicks by the hour like a service like statcounter might do. This is real web analytics...
I imagine that this data was already collected by AdSense. Google wasn't kidding when it said it had the resources to identity fradulent clicks.

Analytics, I believe, is just a wrapper around the data collection interface that they had previously built.

[Dekker]

Google will certainly make it more than pay for itself by the increase in AdWords revenue it draws.

But even beside that, not EVERYTHING a company does is about making money. For example, Google removed AdSense ads from blogspot.com hosted blogs. They certainly didn't make money by doing that.


Yeah, but they're pushing bloggers to sign up with Google Adsense on their blogs..it's much easier to get an account if you do it through your blogger account.

More people will use blogger if it's not stuffed with other people's ad, they can make their own money off it, and it looks free and nice.

as well google would be breaking a lot of TOS if they displayed their own ads, and allowed users to display theirs.

they end up making more money through more bloggers, because bloggers see it as a viable source of income.

[Mister Tut]

Google's rationale for making analytics free is, I'm sure, the same as for keeping Blogspot free. Build the marketplace, enhance the marketplace, BE the marketplace.

Have the infrastructure that keeps your competition constantly trying to catch up.

[web-spy]

AdWords is the best thing Google has ever done. Just because of this they are that rich.
It would've been a huge failure not to make Google Analytics available for free. Now everyone can track their campaign better and spend more money on AdWords.

[michaelbenson]

I think this is probally more of a publicity stunt of generating some actual positive and encouraging news around Google for a change instead of the usual persistant conspiracy theories that Google is stealing all our data and planning to monopolize internet culture as we see it.

[Dekker]

I think this is probally more of a publicity stunt of generating some actual positive and encouraging news around Google for a change instead of the usual persistant conspiracy theories that Google is stealing all our data and planning to monopolize internet culture as we see it.

yes, but now they're doing it for free :p

[Toonces51]

I would think that the Google conspiracy theorists would be even more scared by this--after all, Google will be gaining even more information about the sites of the people who use it...

Toonces51