Here’s the official announcement from the Google Analytics blog:

At Google, we are passionate about speed and making the web faster, and we are glad to see that many website owners share the same idea. A faster web is better for both users and businesses. A slow loading landing page not only impacts your conversion rate, but can also impact AdWords Landing Page Quality and ranking in Google search.

To improve the performance of your pages, you first need to measure and diagnose the speed of a page, which can be a difficult task. Furthermore, even with page speed measurements, it’s critical to look at page speed in context of other web analytics data.

Therefore, we are thrilled to announce the availability of the Site Speed report in the new Google Analytics platform. With the Site Speed report you can measure the page load time across your site.

Screenshot:

Uses for the Site Speed Report

• Content: Which landing pages are slowest?
• Traffic sources: Which campaigns correspond to faster page loads overall?
• Visitor: How does page load time vary across geographies?
• Technology: Does your site load faster or slower for different browsers?

The Site Speed tracking feature is available only to the new Google Analytics under Content > Site Speed. This new feature is disabled by default so won’t see any results on the Site Speed section on your Google Analytics account, until it is enabled. To enable it, all you need to do is add/insert a single line of code to the asynchronous code:

[php]_gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']);[/php]

What I did was to add it below my existing Analytics code:

[php]<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']);

(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>[/php]

It takes about 24 hours before you can see results and view the load time of your website/blog. I just recently added the Site Speed tracking feature to my Google Analytics account to track load times for JaypeeOnline. I tried comparing the results on Google Analytics Site Speed vs. Pingdom Tools and load times were a few seconds lower on Google Analytics. Although I’m not sure which one is more accurate, I’m happy that the load times are lower on Google Analytics because it means that I’m closer to the standard used by Google.

Anybody else using or tried the Google Analytics Site Speed tracking feature? What do you like/dislike about this new feature? What other features would you like to see added to Google Analytics? Please share your thoughts.

Btw for those who aren’t aware, I’m currently having a 1,500 business cards giveaway courtesy of AllBusinessCards.com. I’ll also be posting another giveaway within the next few days so watch out for it.

Blogging

• The 5 Forgotten Keys to Extraordinary Blogging Success
• Using Pop Culture to Influence Your Reader
• 3 Ninja Ways To Get Backlinks
• How To Tell Your Friends And Family About Your Blogging Job

WordPress

• How to Easily Disable Theme Changing
• 4 Ways To Start an Auction Site with WordPress
• How to Add Facebook Open Graph Meta Data in WordPress Themes
• WordPress 3.2 New Dashboard and Twenty Eleven

SEO

• Google Panda Algorithm Exploit Uncovered
• SEO for YouTube : Advanced Tricks
• Google Analytics Now Tracks Page Load Speed
• Optimising Video For Search Engines

Social Media

• Social Media Strategy In Four Steps
• Do You Have Social Media Clout?
• Skip the Social Media Bandwagon and Pursue Your Passion!
• Social Search: Personalization of the Web

Technology

• An IP Address Does Not Point To a Person, Judge Rules
• New Rechargeable Battery Uses Water
• Google Allows Carriers To Ban Tethering Apps
• Aaron Computer Rental Firm Spies On Users

Gadgets

• Trim Slice Tegra 2 Smarttop
• The World’s Smallest Video Camera
• MSI announces 4th Generation Smart Touch AIO-Wind Top AE2070
• Tiny CrazyFlie Quadrocopter

Pinoy Blogs

• Nokia E6 in the wild running on Symbian Anna
• Lenovo IdeaPad U260 Review
• LG Optimus Black P970 : Price, Specs, Photos
• Send Email Using @facebook.com from Gmail

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

• Got Myself An Android Tablet
• 1,500 Business Cards Giveaway from AllBusinessCards.com
• WordPress for BlackBerry 1.5 Now Available
• Distraction Free Writing Mode Coming to WordPress 3.2
• iOS 4.3.3 Software Update
• 8 Ways to Increase Your Sites Conversion Rates
• Exclusive Video of Osama Dead [Facebook SCAM]
• Celebrities Who Cosplayed

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or would want to share your article or any interesting story that you found in the Internet and have it featured in the next Weekend Roundup, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via the contact page.

Wow, time flies so fast! I never realized ’til a few days ago that I haven’t published a blog update for more than a year already. My last blog update was done on November 2009. For those who are new here and aren’t familiar with my blog updates, these posts are done not only to share with the readers the plugins/tools I use and site improvements/changes, but it also serves as a “note” for myself so I have a record of the stuff that I’ve installed/uninstalled and the changes I’ve made to the site.

Below are the plugins and other stuff that I’ve installed/uninstalled, added/removed or changed since my last update.

Uninstalled Plugins

• Comment Info Detector – plugin that detects and displays the commenter’s country, web browser and operating system.
• CommentLuv – plugin that displays the commenter’s latest blog post based on their RSS feed.
• Wibiya Toolbar – official Wibiya Toolbar plugin that integrates different social networking features, apps, widgets and other tools.

These plugins all work fine and are pretty nifty plugins but the reason I uninstalled all three plugins was to cut down the “fat” on this blog. I’m working on lessening the resources used on the server and lessening page load times. Less plugins = less resources used. Although they provided neat features, the blog could run without them.

Installed Plugins

• Dashboard Notepad – plugin that adds a simple notepad widget within the WordPress dashboard. You can read the review I made for this plugin here.
• PubSubHubbub – plugin that enables a blog to let other parties know in real-time when there are new updates.
• W3 Total Cache – performance optimization (caching) plugin that improves server performance, improves page load times and user experience.

Installed the Dashboard Notepad plugin so I could write down notes (drafts, to-do lists, etc.) on my WordPress dashboard. I installed PubSubHubbub to enable real-time updates to Google Reader, FriendFeed, etc. Last time, I was using WP Super Cache and then I came across the W3 Total Cache plugin. Tried it and never looked back as it provided more features, did the job better (page load times were better with W3TC than WP Super Cache) and it was compatible with other plugins I used.

Other Changes

• Reinvigorate – I previously had a premium account on Reinvigorate which cost $5/month (stats and analytics service). I love Reinvigorate and have been using it the past few years but I decided to cancel the premium account and just rely on Google Analytics to cut down on my expenses. I still recommend them and you can get a free account if your monthly traffic is less than 100,000.
• Infolinks – added Infolinks, an in-text advertising program as an additional revenue source. Those are the red, double underlined links found throughout the site. Btw, I’d like to know from the regular readers if the Infolinks ads bother you or not. Thanks!
• CDN – If you might’ve noticed, the posts, pages and the site as a whole loads faster. That’s because aside from using the W3 Total Cache plugin, JaypeeOnline has been using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) the past few months. I’ll publish a more detailed post about this soon.

If any of you guys have comments, feedback or suggestions to make JaypeeOnline better, please don’t hesitate to share it with me via the comments section or if you want to remain anonymous, you can send me a message via the contact page. Thank you and have a nice day!

Blogging

• New Bloggers Beware: 3 Traps You Need to Avoid
• How Google Analytics Can Dramatically Help Your Blogging
• HOW TO: Capitalize When Writing for the Web (Blogging Grammar Lessons)
• Why Boring Is the New Exciting

WordPress

• How to Display WordPress Post Thumbnails with Captions
• How to Unregister the Default WordPress Widgets to Clean Up Your Dashboard
• Add a Countdown Timer To WordPress with jQuery T Minus Countdown
• How To Upload and Link to PDFs in WordPress

SEO

• The Blockbuster Secret to Seducing Your Audience
• SEO Strategies For 2011 And Moving On From Algorithm Changes
• Meta Description for Search & Social
• How Google Destroyed the Value of Google Site Search

Social Media

• Which is Better for Social Media Monitoring: TweetDeck or SproutSocial?
• Social Media-Integration-Theory-Model
• How To Build A Facebook Landing Page With iFrames
• Top 100 Socially Networked Cities in the U.S.

Technology

• Hacking a Car With Music
• The Emergency Internet Bunkers
• White House Wants New Copyright Law Crackdown
• Physicists Develop Quantum Public Key Encryption

Gadgets

• HTC Thunderbolt review
• Panasonic Unveils Solar Power Table That Wirelessly Charges Your Gadgets
• Harman AKG GHS-1 Gaming Headset
• Roxio Game Capture Device

Pinoy Blogs

• Lenovo IdeaPad U260 first impressions
• Going Paperless with Press Releases
• Sony VAIO Y Review
• 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami: Donating Through Technology

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

• How Do You Like Internet Explorer 9?
• Preview Google Analytics Version 5
• WordPress for iOS 2.7 Now Available
• Jetpack – Bringing WP.com Features to WP.org Blogs
• Road to WordPress 3.1
• Social Media Milestones [Infographic]
• The 50 Top-Ranked Blogs in the Philippines

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or would want to share your article or any interesting story that you found in the Internet and have it featured in the next Weekend Roundup, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via the contact page.

Yesterday during the Google Analytics User Conference in San Francisco, attendees got a preview of the new version of Google Analytics. This new, upcoming version – Google Analytics Version 5 is designed to make it easier and faster for users to access the data they want. Many of the improvements done to the new version were a result of user feedback like – users will be able to view multiple advanced segments without having to use “All Visits” and other requested features like multiple dashboards.

New Features for Google Analytics Version 5:

• New Home Section
• New Dashboard
• Widgets
• Updated Custom Reporting Tool
• New Admin Section
• World Cloud Visualization
• Goals as Events

Here’s a video by one of the beta testers who had early access to Google Analytics V5.

For now, only a small group of Analytics users participating in the private testing have access to Google Analytics V5. This new version will eventually be gradually rolled out to everyone in the coming months.

If you want to join the beta testing program, you can visit the beta sign-up page. If you’re already part of the program, you can go to the new version by clicking on the link on your Google Analytics account. Using the new version of Google Analytics won’t affect your website traffic reports and you can use the current version while testing out the new version.

What do you think of the new, upcoming Google Analytics Version 5? Anyone here who’s tried it already? How do you like the new features? Please share your thoughts.

via AJ Batac