Google Analytics Lag Time woes? - Get immediate gratification with WASP
We often encounter webmasters and web site developers requesting help on blogs because their data is not showing up in their Google Analytics reporting interface.
In part, the problem is due to the lag time between testing their tagging and seeing their data in Google Analytics Reports.
The problem is not specific to GA. It applies to most web analytics vendor solutions including Omniture Site Catalyst because data is never really reported in real real time, really, regardless of a vendor's claims. (You may read all references to Google in this post as referring to almost any other vendor since the problem and the solution provided applies to most Web Analytics Solutions.)
Well, why not check out the data that your tracking code is sending to Google? If it's not sending the data now, its not going to show up in 20 minutes, an hour or ever in your reports.
There is a free Firefox extension called WASP - Web Analytics Solution Profiler that displays the variables being sent to Google for any website opened in Firefox. The data is shown in the WASP side-bar.
The extension is developed and maintained by Stephane Hamel. It can be downloaded and installed from his site at wasp.immeria.net
Check it out and post questions and comments below.
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Some data and metrics are pageView-based and other visit-based (eg page-depth, bounce-rate).
The former can show up in as little as 1 to 2 hours.
For starters, calculating the latter can even start at least 30 mins, since GA's processing will only regard a visit as complete, by default, 30 mins after it receives your visitor's the last bit of data. One also has the option to use _setSessionTimeout() and extend that period.
So, the processing required to calculate all visit-based metrics must be delayed and occurs a few times per day.
So, practically, for simple counts of individual pageViews and events, you should see your data within 2 hours.
You could see other metrics within 3 to 4 hours but it should only be regarded as complete after about 12 hours.
Brian