How Google Analytics Works

Why There is a Delay in Reporting?

How long does it take to get Report Data in your Google Analytics Interface?

Once you understand how Google Analytics tracks you will also see why there is a delay. Below I am going to show you the tracking process from start to finish. Almost any link that is clicked to get to your website will be identified with Google Anlaytics including, email, PPC, referrals or social networks in traffic sources. Once the visitor arrives on your site, their movements are tracked.

Step 1- Visitor Enters Query into a Search Engine

  1. The visitor enters a keyword (e.g. install google analytics) into Google search and results are displayed.
  2. Search engine result pages (SERPS) appear, starting with Google Pay Per Click (Adwords, if market is competitive enough)
  3. Natural Results appear. All results that appear in the organic section fall below the one I have circled below. In this case Google states there are 1,000 pages found. Natural results cannot be purchased; they are earned based on hundreds of ranking factors Google keeps close to thier chest. AdWords advertisements will usually be present (depending on keyword competition) in Google and search partner results.

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Google Analytics tracks all activity on your site after either click is made.

Searching Google Example

Step 2- Visitor Takes Action

The web searcher clicks your link and lands on your site. Once a decision is made by the user to move forward by clicking, Google Analytics goes to work.

The visitor clicked the desired result and ended up on your website, hooray!

Your website has the tracking code installed so you are going to be able to view the visitor’s actions on your site in Google Analytics reports. So far, analytics knows this much about the visitor:

  1. Entered the keyword “install google analytics”.
  2. Entered the site from a defined traffic source- organic.
  3. Destination landing page.
  4. Of course we also know the browser settings and a few other things about our visitor but how they move forward (or don’t) is critical.

Google Analytics will track what the visitor does on your website.

Note: Google Analytics does not collect any personal information like email addresses or names, although you can use query strings to populate Google Analytics with personal information.

Recap:

    1. I entered the phrase “Installing Google Analytics”
    2. If I click on the AdWords ad the visit shows up in your reports in the yellow area “google (cpc)”

    1. If I click The natural result it would show up in the yellow area “google (organic)”

In the next steps we will learn how this data populates your report interface.
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Direct Interface Link

Step 3- Data Arrives at Google Secure Servers

The analytics tracking script is a java script that in itself is not capable of writing data to a database. It is a client side scripting. The actual data that forms into your website analytics report is server-side. All the java script (code that is on your site) does is records images that are translated by a server side script.

This script is what creates the log files. These log files are the basis of the data we see in our Analytics interface. After the initial java script call with associated images is received the visitor actually enters the Google server to populate the data base with all the fun stuff;

  • Where did they go?
  • How long did they stay?
  • Where did they exit?

Communicating accurate data to the Google server are PHP and Java scripts working hand in hand.

Step 4- Data for Reporting is uploaded to Google Analytics Interface

Once all the data is sorted, processed and filtered you have report data available to Google Analytics.

Step 5- Report Data Appears in the Google Analytics Interface

This entire process takes anywhere from 1 to 24 hours. Although I have been told it can be as quick as 1 hour, the fastest I have ever seen data appear in analytics was a couple hours. To see current data simply choose today in your timeline.

The exact timeline is not clearly stated by Google, to play it safe  wait the 24 hours, that seems to be commonly understood. Viola, your reports are ready:

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