Internet search giant Google has updated two free tools used for tracking how people find and use  Web sites, with Tuesday's announcement that its Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer programs have been expanded. New features to weed out poorly performing Web site configurations and analyze pages before placing them online join expanded reports and additional tutorial videos in the updates launched Tuesday. Experiment Pruning Weeds Out Poorly Performing Pages The updated tools were announced Tuesday at an industry conference in San Jose, California, following requests from users of the Mountain, View, California-based company's Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer programs. Website Optimizer is Google's content testing and optimization tool. Chief among the features users of Google Website Optimizer had asked for was a way to easily discard poorly performing portions of sites, and the new changes include what Google has called "experiment pruning" to do just that. The updated tool for optimizing sites has added the ability to "disable one or more combinations from taking part in your Website Optimizer experiments," according to Google Inside AdWords' Trevor Claiborne, who announced the changes in a message on the company's official AdWords blog Tuesday. "Pruning can help you achieve faster, more meaningful results by allowing you to remove poorly performing or illogical combinations," noted Claiborne. "This is especially helpful in cases where your experiment may have too many combinations relative to the amount of traffic it receives," he added. System For Reporting On And Disabling Pages Improved AdWords is Google's popular AdWords online ad management program. The large majority of Google's 2007 $16.6 billion ad sale revenue coming from sales of small text-based ads shown alongside search results and on its ad network, managed by advertisers who bid for keywords through its AdWords program. Over time Google has added image and video advertising options to what had been a text only program. Any user with a Google Analytics account, the company's remotely hosted web analytics service for easily tracking visitor interaction with web sites, can use the free Google Website Optimizer program. Google acquired the core of their web analytics technology in 2005, when they purchased Urchin Software Corporation. Google Analytics is fully integrated with the company's AdWords on-line advertising program. Google's new Website Optimizer pruning system will help automate a process that had required several steps in the past, according to Google Website Optimizer's Jon Stona. "In the past, there wasn't an easy way for you to disable low performing or illogical combinations," noted Stona, writing about the new changes in a message on the firm's support blog for the tool. "You'd have to stop a test, make a copy, lose all your test data, and then launch a new test. That's all changing starting today," said Stona. With the new setup users have fewer steps to follow. "Now, you can simply select any number of page variations from your experiment report, click our new 'Disable' button," Stona added. Google Updates Website Optimizer The redesigned reporting in the updated Google Website Optimizer included better indications of Web site pages that are performing well. "We've updated our reporting interface to better indicate when a page variation is actually a high confidence winner as opposed to just one that happens to be performing well at a given time," Stona wrote in the Tuesday announcement. Claiborne said the reporting changes were aimed at helping to prevent users from "drawing false conclusions from results or from ending experiments prematurely," and to "more clearly show how your combinations are performing." Both Google Analytics and Website Optimizer were designed to help show Webmasters how people find their sites and what they do or buy once they arrive there. Google has not disclosed how many people use both tools together, however some industry analysts place the number at over 200,000. Google hopes to attract more users to the tools in part with several new online tutorial videos explaining how the tools and their new features work. "We've developed some great new videos," Claiborne said. "These include a new product tour, A/B experiment demo, and multivariate experiment demo," he added. Related Links:
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