So Google wants to speed up the web, to the degree of saying if your site isn’t fast enough, you might suffer a ranking penalty. I’m all for speed. So here’s a suggestion. Google, take a leadership role in developing a web tracking API, so I can have one script that does it all.
Here are tracking scripts I currently consider essential:
- Google Analytics (because I want a nice overview of what’s going on at my site)
- Quantcast (because I think it’s important to have a public reporting of our traffic data)
- BLVD Status (because I can’t tolerate Google Analytics giving me a six hour delay to know what’s happening on my site)
Now on top of this, I’m also testing Chartbeat for instant analytics. Here on Daggle, I’m testing ValueClick to deliver ads. Google AdSense also runs for one ad unit. That’s six different JavaScript codes that need to run.
Why can I have one JavaScript code that does it all? OK, I know for ad delivery, that might be hard. But why can’t we have a universal JavaScript tracking code that works for Google Analytics, Quantcast, BLVD Status or anyone who wants to provide hosted analytics data? One script that sends the key data back to a central place, that in turn passes it on to the tracking services we select.
Personally, when I encounter a delay with a web site, it’s not that the page is having some CSS issue. It’s that some script is taking time pulling back or sending data to a third party firm.
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Agreed that it’s the script that causes the speed problem most of the time for me as well..that’s why I tend to put all the scripts at the bottom of the page, so that the content loads faster, but with Google Adsense and other scripts that are for the most part location dependent, it does get a bit tedious..
You could put all the Javascript in one place, but it would still have to do all the different tasks you “need”. I don’t see much potential savings there. It’s not like these different programs share common code.
Could Google make a premium version of Analytics that didn’t have the six hour delay? Then you could get rid of the secondary analytics service.
You are looking for jshub.org. It’s a project started by John Graham-Cumming – read more in
his blog.
To say nothing of the horrible security implications of Javascript.*
Scripting and Flash being major vectors for web nasties, increasing numbers of folks are surfing without turning them on. The numbers for the Firefox/NoScript/Flashblock combo are climbing every day. Add AdBlock Plus to that combo and sites like Daggle will never “track” them.
Of course, they will still be in the “regular” web logs. In fact I consistently see large differences between logs and tracking on my sites. Given that, perhaps we should be looking at ways we can better analyse raw logs rather than using outside scripts to do it for us.
* Speaking of John Graham-Cumming, he was a fascinating and sobering guest on “Security Now” episode 221 on November 5th 2009
Seriously – JS includes are really starting to become a problem. Take a look at TechCrunch. Their website takes 20+ seconds to load these days due to all the ads, trackers, widgets, etc.
If you ever want to do an instant test of a site, which will show you the effect all those 3rd parties, my company just launched an instant test tool that will show you performance and load times in several different cities.