A new feature within Google Analytics has been announced in their blog - In-Page Analytics provides users with a method of viewing the Analytics data superimposed onto their website for the relevant stats on page usage and content. Google says that they have introduced this in response to user comments, to help website owners and marketers visualize how their site visitors navigate on a given website page.

This new feature is similar to the Site Overlay report, which Google admits hasn’t worked as well it could due to issues with different site designs and functionality. In-Page Analytics is still in beta and more features are expected to be added soon.

Google remains very active in developing and introducing new products and features for various parts of its product range. On the main search side the Google Webmaster Blog has announced that in cases where webmasters indicate a country specification for a domain, this will be indicated in some search results within the green information line. These 'region tags' will be displayed against results where the location or relevancy of the listings may be unclear.

At the same time, Google's main blog has announced a new way of displaying image results. The new format for images to be displayed within the main Google search results will include one larger image and additional smaller images alongside, so that searchers can see more pictures than before.

Finally, another new feature that has been announced relates to Google Analytics, which now provides 'asynchronous tracking'. This is one of many enhancements being added to this service at the moment and the new code snippet can help to reduce webpage load time and also enables enhanced data collection and accuracy through the elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn't fully loaded. The asynchronous tracking code is now in Beta and available to all Google Analytics users.

As reported by MediaWeek, the recent announcement by Google of new functions within its Analytics stats package Google Analytics included the ability for users to track their visitor traffic to both mobile sites and applications, breaking out the devices being used so that marketers can track digital campaigns in one place, whether through the web or mobile.

Analytics users need to add a piece of code to their mobile sites or applications for Google to collect the stats from all mobile-enabled devices, although it doesn't cover all programming languages yet. Developers can now track the usage of their apps and with the link to Google's Android operating system, these apps can be linked to ad campaigns, with mobile searches reported to be up by 30% year-on-year for the recent quarter.

The mobile-tracking features are part of a broader update to Google Analytics that includes the ability to set and track engagement goals, add customized audience segments, track unique visitors for segments and set "intelligence alerts." With this latter function, Google hopes to automate the process of users having to sift through the data to find key insights. Google's algorithms will comb through analytics information to find interesting trends, such as a surge in traffic from a particular site or an increased bounce rate in a geographical area.

Google's 'Inside AdWords' blog has just completed a series of short posts about how AdWords and Analytics can best be used together. More and more search engine advertising campaigns through Google AdWords are linking in the Google Analytics data as well to get a better insight into how keywords are performing once searchers visit a site. These 4 posts by Google cover tips and advice about using these 2 tools together and include links to additional resources.

The first article introduces the series of articles and provides links to a series of short videos on how to use Google Analytics. The second post looks at linking the AdWords and Analytics accounts and then how to track revenue generated by the PPC adverts.

The third blog article explains how to identify the keywords that lose money and how to calculate the ROI of a campaign. The final article covers ways to find the best keywords and ad positions that drive revenue.

The Google Analytics blog has posted an article about tracking website visits from the Apple iPhone. The increasing usage of the iPhone will potentially mean new opportunities for websites to receive traffic, particularly for local business marketing, and the use of Analytics data can help website owners identify this traffic and how users access the website pages.

Google has already provided an option for AdWords advertisers to promote their businesses on the iPhone (plus other Internet browser enabled mobiles) and now Analytics has created a default 'segment' to track the visitor activity from this source. This data will enable site owners to compare any differences between mobile activity and traditional web-based visits and so identify any potential issues with the website design in this format.

The Official Google blog has posted a short article about the use and importance of 'bounce rates' within Google Analytics reports. This is said to be the first in a series of blog posts about 'The Power of Measurement', designed to help website owners understand how difference metrics can be used and what they mean.

The article explains the simple attributes that bounce rate figures have, namely that it is a metric that is really hard to misunderstand, because it measures the number of people who landed on your site and refused to give you even one single click. It is also a metric that is available in most web analytics tools, and it is quick and easy to use, because the bounce rate figures will help you understand where and how to make changes on your website. An example is used in the post to illustrate what the bounce rate figures may be saying and what action can then be taken.

The Google Analytics blog has published more information about the new Advanced Segmentation function available within the statistical package provided for websites. It outlines how users can now compare different data segments and key performance metrics within Analytics reports and how these segments can be saved and then applied to any future report. The blog entry also reports how users of Analytics can now select from predefined custom segments such as "Paid Traffic", "Visits with Conversions"or "New Visits" as well as use an auto-complete function and a drag and drop interface to easily create segments.

The new blog entry provides a useful introduction to segments and how these Advanced Segments can now be created. It describes how a segment is, simply, a subset of data and - for example - may refer to a subset of visitors whose behaviour users may like to analyze or compare with another segment. With Advanced Segmentation users can create segments whilst browsing reports and then the segments that are created can apply to historical data as well as current and future traffic.

As reported previously, these new features within Google Analytics provide even more powerful tools to analyse and interpret data and then test alternative changes to a website or marketing campaign. This article offers a good overview of how this data can be selected and used.

The increasingly sophisticated options for small business owners to run analytics services on their website continues to develop, giving them better information on how their sites are being found and used for a minimal cost. Google Analytics has announced a series of new enhancements for their service which comes hard on the heels of Yahoo! launching their own free Analytics product.

Earlier this month Yahoo! finally launched their long-awaited analytics service, based on the IndexTools service which they bought in April. Called simply Yahoo Web Analytics, this is another free tool available for websites to use but providing in-depth data analysis that offers a significant challenge to established - and higher cost - services such as WebTrends, Coremetrics and Omniture. However, Yahoo! (and MSN who are also developing an analytics tool) are later to the market for their free product and Google has now established a strong lead in this sector.

In taking another step forward against this new Yahoo! product, Google Analytics has added some new features to their product, including a custom-reporting feature, advanced segmentation, a renamed Trendalyzer (now called Motion Chart) as well as closer integration with the AdSense service.

With the custom-reporting function, users can now request tailored reports by geography, the referring source, or other selected queries. With advanced segmentation, users now have the ability to create customised segments of site traffic, such as from a particular country, and can also limit the data viewed to just AdWords customers or other sources and then switch between segments by checking and unchecking boxes.

The new 'Motion Chart' tool visually depicts user behavior on a site, allowing users to search on five dimensions of data to see how site visitors behave over time, and how the quality of their visits rates through an animated graph with colored patterns. With the AdSense enhancements to follow, Google Analytics is making an already powerful tool even more valuable to users, offering greater insights and data analysis on website activity.

A recent post on the Google Analytics blog helps to explain some of the issues surrounding the auto-tagging of a Google AdWords account so that the data is automatically recorded and displayed within Analytics, if both options are being used. Because the auto-tagging creates a dynamic parameter that's attached to the link URL from the AdWords advert, this can sometimes create issues for websites.

The blog clearly explains how the tagging parameter works and ways that this can be tested before implementing the link, depending on the URL structure of a website. It also reminds users of possible issues if redirects are used through third-party tracking systems, or sometimes servers may block or remove the gclid parameter that AdWords adds to the PPC advert links. In some cases, problems with auto-tagging mean that AdWords links need to be manually created and the blog post finishes with guidelines on doing this.