A brief history of web analytics
Web analytics traces back to the early ’90s and the creation of a company called Webtrends. In server-side programming, when a specific HTML element was requested by a visitor, that request was called a “hit” and recorded in a server log file — the element could be an image, a bit of text, or any other piece of the requested page. Webtrends built software that analyzed those log files, effectively giving birth to commercial web analytics in 1993.
That was enough to analyze traffic when most of the web was made up of static pages — mostly text and links. But as programming advanced through the ’90s, pages moved toward content-heavy layouts and interactive code, and simple log analysis stopped being enough.
Fast forward to 2006, when Google acquired Urchin, an established web analytics firm focused on log-based tools for understanding user behavior. That acquisition eventually became what we know today as Google Analytics — the leading web analytics platform, and likely one of the first tools you’ll run into if you’re looking into web analytics.
What is web analytics?
Simply put, web analytics is the study of your website visitors’ online behavior. At a high level, it involves deploying a tracking code that routes information, collecting that behavioral data, and analyzing it to find ways to optimize your website — which in turn improves the visitor’s experience and increases the impact of your calls to action, products, or services.
Why does it matter?
Web analytics matters because it’s a measure of success for a website and the business behind it. It gives you a clear picture of your site’s trends, shows you how people find you across different search engines, and surfaces a whole range of other metrics that help you build online awareness and visibility.