Google Analytics for university websites

[Terry Boehmker]

Our university web team has created more than 100 websites for academic and administrative departments using a content management system.  Each website has its own separate Google Analytics account to monitor the total number of visitors and gauge what pages within that website draw the most interest. 

Does anyone know if there's a way to set up a Google Analytics account that will combine all of the campus websites into one report that will give us a complete picture of visitors to each academic and administrative department website?

If that can't be done with Google Analytics, does anyone know another way to get the visitor data we need for our multiple websites?

Thanks, Terry    

   

       

[Dan Demmons]

Hi Terry,

Unfortunately I don't think you can combine data across multiple accounts within GA, you could jury rig something in excel etc, outside of GA, but I don't think you can within.

I've got GA set up across our institution (hundreds of sites/subsites) using a single account, then to break it up by directory/subdomain/site, i just create a separate profile with a filter to just grab the individual data I need ( or need to provide unique access to). That way you can get a bit more granular with your data, and restrict user access within your GA account, so that they can grab just the data they need and no more, while still retaining the ability to monitor data across your complete domain.

 

Probably not much help you at you this point, what with you already setting up multiple different accounts. :(

-Dan

[Daniel Evilsizor]

Dan,

 

I'd be interested in learning more about your GA setup, we've tried using a similar method at our university, where we use one account and have separate profiles for sub-sites. However once we break out sub-sites into separate profiles, is there any way to view the combined data for the entire account (all profiles at once) in GA? From what I can tell, my only option is to view the data for each profile separately, which makes it hard to see the big picture.

 

Thanks,

- Daniel

[Michael A. Smith]

While there's no straightforward way to combine past data, you can create a conglomerate tracker for all your GA profiles. You basically just add a second set of the Google tracker code with a different profile number, and use that same profile number on all the sites. (And you may need a bit of additional code to account for domain name differences across the sites/profiles.)

[Terry Boehmker]

MICHAEL,

As you suggested, I created a conglomerate tracker in Google Analytics to get combined data on several sites/profiles. I created one combining 2 websites, and it does collect the combined data. But I need some direction on the additional code you mentioned to display the names of the different sites/domains.

I looked through the GA website trying to find that additional code, but I can't seem to locate it. 

Can you tell me where to find it?    

Thanks,

TERRY

[Michael Plyler]

There is a tool called GA Data Grabber that might work. You'd still have to export the different profiles, but this would create a comprehensive report.

 

It might be time to create a new profile in GA and redo your scripts. With a CMS, this shouldn't be too painful.

[Steven Leggett]

Hey Terry,

 

GA can track across multiple domains and sub domains. You have to modify the snippet on your pages

http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans...

 

And here's putting everything into one account, then splicing using  filters and sub-domains

http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55524

[Chris Wiegman]

While not the same level as Google analytics we use AWStats to aggregate all our sites into a single report. I've yet to find anything that really does a better job.