Google Analytics Training Book/Materials Recommendations

[Will]

Can anyone recommend some good training materials for Google Analytics - something that gets into the meat and veg of it all? Material along the lines of The Fine Art of SEO for quality of reading etc.

[David]

There are a number of books but Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik seems to be the tome of choice. I haven't read it, so I can't give a personal view but the author is highly regarded and his blog is impressive.

If you're looking for something specific to Google Analytics, this book may be a better bet. Also, check out the Google Analytics blog.

[Will]

That's great, thanks David. I've read a couple of specific articles from Avinash Kaushik's blog, but didn't know about his book, or the other Google Analytics book or blog. I shall check both blogs to try and get a better feel before grabbing one of those books. Likely the Google Analytics specific one as that's the 'weapon of choice' at the moment.

As regards GA I've noticed a few times now I'm getting what appear to be reverse spam links from bit.ly/forex and another couple of linkproviders appear in my traffic sources pages. It's really annoying; though I found some posts to get around it, I am wondering if it can be eliminated fully. Whilst AW stats is great for raw data, it's not so hot for the on-the-fly manipulation and versatility GA provides. I guess MS Excel is good with AW stats data in that regard, just a bit fiddly making it to the stuff you take for granted with GA.

[Lynn]

I've ordered the book 'Advanced Web metrics with Google Analytics' by Brian Cifton, suggested by David.
I'll let you know after I have read it .