Comments on: Google Analytics is down

By: Dennis Gurock

Dennis Gurock — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 22:11:11 +0000

Thanks James. This is similar to the suggestion Baruch posted. Just a quick question: If I add the Java Script include to the bottom of the page, can I use the Urchin Java Script functions earlier on the page (your posting looks like it should work)?

I will look into it and decide if I re-enable Analytics. Additionally I will look for some alternatives that we can host ourselves though.

By: James Newton-King

James Newton-King — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:00:31 +0000

Dennis I’ve written a post about how to use Google Analytics so that if it goes down it doesn’t interfere with your website.

http://www.newtonsoft.com/blog/archive/2006/03/10/11.aspx

By: James Newton-King - Newtonblog : Google Analytics Downtime

James Newton-King - Newtonblog : Google Analytics Downtime — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:25:50 +0000

[...] Google Analytics was down for a few hours today. While it is not unusual for an ASP service to have downtime, Google Analytics works by you including a link to their Javascript file on your website, and while the website was down today that file was also unavailable. Anyone who linked to the file in the page header will have found that their websites were not loading, the reason being that no page content is displayed until all header files have been downloaded. This is a big deal if your business is based around the internet, and some website owners have decided to remove the service entirely. [...]

By: Dennis Gurock

Dennis Gurock — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 22:59:18 +0000

I know about the trick with moving the Java Script include to the bottom of the page, but the problem is that you sometimes need to call some java script functions from the included file (for a link to the shop, for example). And I suppose that the functions wouldn’t work if the script is included later in the page.

We even thought about hosting the Java Script file ourselves, though I don’t know if Google’s TOS allows it and we would have to check Google’s file regularly for updates.

By: Baruch

Baruch — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 22:40:56 +0000

I’m not using GA myself but supposedly it should be enough to move their javascript code to the end of the page, it will be good enough to show the page, though the browser might still show the page as not completely loaded.

Maybe they should use some trick to load the javascript code from a small snippet and eval it when it’s loaded to avoid such things. Though it won’t solve the issue of lost statistics.