Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics, 3rd Edition

Introduction

Although the birth of the Web took place in August 1991, it did not become commercial until around 1995. In those early days, it was kind of fun to have a spinning logo, a few pictures, and your contact details as the basis of your online presence. My first website was just that—no more than my curriculum vitae online at the University of Bristol. Then companies decided to copy (or worse, scan) their paper catalogs and brochures and simply dump these on their websites. This was a step forward in providing more content, but the user experience was poor to say the least, and no one was really measuring conversions. The most anyone kept track of was hits, which nobody ever really understood, though they were assumed (incorrectly) to ...