Most of you are already accustomed with URL address shortening services. You know, those websites which make your URLs short and ugly so you can post them on Twitter, Facebook or just send them to a friend. The thing is you never know where these links end up and how much traffic they drive. For me, working in web analytics, not knowing something like this is itching like hell, so I have decided to find a solution to it.

Tackling the problem

What I did is create a special GreaseMonkey script for Firefox (you need to have GreaseMonkey installed), which offers the possibility of adding Google Analytics variables in order to easily track all the users clicking on the short URL you are just about to generate. Here is how the the new http://is.gd homepage will look like after you install the script.

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Google Analytics is a great tool, but when you use it frequently, it shows some glitches. Having many profiles, trying to access certain type of data can be sometimes pretty difficult.

Here are 4 scripts that can enhance your Google Analytics Experience. They work with GreaseMonkey, which is a really cool plugin for Firefox, which allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.

1. Show 100 by Lunametrics. Helps you automatically show all your profiles from the website profile list in Google Analytics.
2. Google Analytics Report Enhancer by RoiRevolution. Brings up tens of new reports in Google Analytics. It also calculates for you “True Time on Site”, which is the average time spent on site, excluding all bounces.
3. Google Analytics Downloader by Juice Analytics. Adds a highly valuable button to your keywords and referrers reports, stating who sent you unusual traffic. Really great info can be brought out of it.
4. Cleaner Profile Switching by Erik Vold. With this simple script, when you select a new profile to view, you will see the same report you were just on, but it will be for the new profile which you selected. Also, if you wish to compare reports from two profiles, there is an option to view the new profile in a separate tab. Update: Erik Vold has created a Firefox plugin out of the  Cleaner Profile Switching GreaseMonkey Script, for easier management of the tool.