A Look into the History and Future of Web Analytics

Today, web analytics are an important part of how millions of businesses operate. Businesses of all sizes and stripes rely on services like Google Analytics to help them understand consumer wants and optimize web experiences for them. Data analytics is a rapidly growing field as well, expected to be worth $550 billion by 2028.

With all the newness and excitement, it may come as a surprise to know that web analytics is almost as old as the internet itself. The first example of web analytics was hit counters, or simple code that kept track of how often a page is visited. These numbers are easy to understand without expertise. Next came log analysis, which helped individuals interpret server logs. Log analysis could identify traffic sources and new inbound links.

As websites grew more complex, so too did log analysis. As sites added images, audio, and video, browsers had to make HTTP requests per page visit, which got redundant. Caching, or temporarily storing a file in the system to avoid multiple HTTP requests, didn’t show up on the server log. The solution to this problem was tag-based tracking, which collected information on more than just hits. Said additional information allowed analytics to move into the field of marketing.

At the turn of the century, large companies struggled to make use of all the marketing data their website offered. They would take up to 24 hours to process it all. That is, until a company called Urchin arrived on the scene and processed it in as little as 15 minutes. Urchin grew in size and client base until Google acquired them in 2005. And so Google Analytics was born.

Google’s most expansive web analytics product was Universal Analytics, launched in 2012. Capable of offline behavior monitoring and tracking users across multiple platforms and devices, Universal Analytics fueled part of the growing concern for consumer’s digital privacy. Governments like the European Union acted, passing the General Data Protection Regulation in 2016. In response, Google came out with Google Analytics 4 in 2020, which combines depth of insight with compliance to the GDPR’s standards.