A quick presentation on what is Google Analytic and how it works. Brief description on google analytic cookies. Understanding Pageview & Visits.

1. Manish Kumar Agarwal
Mindfire Solutions

2. About Me
ZEND PHP certified Engineer, Sr. web developer at
Mindfire Solutions. Expert in WordPress and Drupal.
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Server Manage
SEO
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Skype: mfs_manish

3. What is Google Analytics
Free
service offered by Google
The
most widely used website statistics service
Provides
statistics and reports about visitors on a
website at-a-glance dashboard view as well as detailed
reports

4. What it does
 Daily, monthly, yearly tracking of site visits
 Create Graph over time
 Which pages visitor went to, how long they stay
 Bounce rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visits that go only one page before
exiting a site.
 Entrance pages
 How they came there
 Search engines and Search terms used
 Location, operating system, monitor resolution
 Over 80 reports available

5. How to setup GA
 Sign up to Google Analytics and provide site link
https://www.google.com/analytics/
- They return code to you
- Paste the code just before the </body>(end body) tag
- Put it on EVERY page you want to be track by Google
- Put it in your template pages, so it will be
automatically on every page
- Go to the Analytics dashboard page to see daily
metrics

6. Sample Analytic Code
<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-33900695-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async =
true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') +
'.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>

7. Type of COOKIES
First-Party Cookies
First-party cookies are created by the Web site you are visiting
and are necessary to keep track of your personal preferences
and the current session as explained above.
Third-Party Cookies
Third-party cookies are created by a Web site other than the
one you are currently visiting; for example, by a third-party
advertiser on that site. The purpose of such cookies is usually to
track your surfing habits, which is why third-party cookies are
considered an invasion of privacy and riskier than first-party
cookies.

8. Type of COOKIES (contd...)
persistent and temporary cookies:
Persistent cookies: these cookies come with an expiration date set somewhere
in the future. They remain on a computer's hard drive until they expire or are
deleted by the user.
Temporary cookies : these cookies are much shorter-lived than their persistent
brothers; they expire as soon as the user closes the browser.

9. What are the COOKIES

10. __utma

11. utma details
Domain Hash: This unique number represents the domain which set up the cookies.
All Google Analytics cookies set by a particular domain have same domain hash. This
number is independent of browser and device.
Random Unique ID: This is the randomly generated number.
Next three numbers are unix timestamps which are represent the time of initial visit,
beginning of previous session and beginning of current session respectively.
The last number is the session counter. It is incremented by one each time a visitor
starts a new session.

12. __utmb & __utmc
__utmb & __utmc - work together as Session Identifiers.
__utmb - a persistent cookie which expires after 30
minutes. Contains domain hash and additional values.
__utmc - a temporary cookie deleted when the user
closes the browser. Contains only the domain hash.

13. Why does Google use both?
If a web page is open for 30 minutes without
activity, the _utmb cookie expires but the _utmc
cookie remains. The next time the user lands on
the page, a new _utmb cookie is created,
denoting a new session but a returning visitor.
With each new page a visitor lands on, the _utmb
cookie gets refreshed, so sessions can last as long
as the user keeps moving throughout the site
without hitting the 30-minute 'inactivity'
deadline.

14. __utmz
__utmz - this is the Campaign Cookie. Stores campaign tracking values passed
by tagged campaign URLs, including utm source, medium and campaign.

15. Pageview vs Visits
A pageview is can be defined as a view of a page on any site that is being tracked by the
GA tracking code. If a visitor reload after reaching the page, this will be counted as an
another pageview. If a visitor navigates to a different page and again returns to the first
page pageview count will be increase as well.
Visits represent the number of identical sessions initiated by all the visitors to a particular
site. If a user is inactive on your site for more than 30 minutes, then this visitor's next
activity to the site will be count as a new session means new new visits.

16. Reference
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/cookie-usage
http://www.tutkiun.com/2011/04/a-google-analytics-cookie-explained.html
http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1257084
http://helpful.knobs-dials.com/index.php/Utma,_utmb,_utmz_cookies
http://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2731565?hl=en