Google Analytics is a great stats service, especially for the price tag (free). It has some options not seen in a few great paid stats providers, such as a nice tie-in to Adwords and cool map-clicking to get some geo data (although that data isn’t comprehensive or totally reliable). There’s one major problem though, especially if you have a web company, an employee or a freelancer who set it up for you. You could be caught in the Google Analytics trap.

The trap is caused by basically three very stupid aspects of Google Analytics (and if any of these three were changed,  particularly the second two, it would probably not be a big deal):

1. Google requires a Gmail account to get Google Analytics. That means it has to be tied to a person.
2. Google does not allow you to transfer a site’s Analytics data to another email address. You can export but you cannot import.
3. Google allows you to make someone view-only for just certain web sites in your profile, but anyone you make an admin automatically gets access to all your sites.

If this is all so geeky your eyes are rolling back in your head, let me be less so. In essence, you will likely have your Analytics account attached to a person you may or may not do business with anymore (or even like). And there’s nothing you can do to get it if they don’t cooperate. And even if they DO cooperate, they can’t really give you control of your Analytics account.

Here is what you see when you try to add someone as an admin. The list of your sites disappears, and you get this message (you might need to click the image to see the full size, and do note the requirement for a Gmail address and the warning that the person will now have control over all your sites):

Sure, you can export the data, set up your own account with Analytics, and start over. But you will start from zero with no history in your actual account (just in an XML or PDF file). So here is how best to avoid the Google Analytics trap:

• Create a special Gmail account for you (for an individual) or for your company or agency and insist whoever is setting up Analytics use that account. That way, a password can simply be changed but the data will stay with you.
• Make sure this is an account that stays with you (for individuals) or the company no matter who quits or is fired or moves on. Make sure it isn’t an account tied to any other unaffiliated personal Google accounts (that can be everything from email to webmaster tools to documents). This should be a Gmail account that is not attached to anyone it shouldn’t be anytime in the future.
• If you already have it set up improperly, you might consider starting over with the first bullet point. Just realize that your new account will not have old data when you’re in Analytics. You will also want to be sure to export all old data. It also might be possible to include two Analytics code snippets for a year so you have a full year of data for comparisons. I haven’t tried it yet, so I’m not sure if there would be conflicts or if both accounts will simply record all data.

I honestly thought I must be wrong. My experience is usually there is some kind of way to do anything if someone else wanted to do it online. But I see many references that prove it can’t be done right on Google’s own sites, such as a Google groups posting about transfering Analytics between Google accounts, this Google help answer about transfering Analytics between Gmail accounts, or this post at the Analytics forum about transferring one of multiple Google Analytics sites to another administrator.

I know I am talking into the void, but seriously Google. This is probably a major issue for many people and I can’t imagine it’s that hard to fix. The easiest and best solution would probably be an import option. Let people export a file from the old account and import it into the new account. Or a simple click to transfer all data from one Gmail address to another.

This is no small matter. Imagine a few scenarios. One, for example, has a disgruntled employee who gets fired. Suddenly all of your stats are gone in a flash, and there’s nothing you can do about it except change the tracking code (if you know how) and get stats from that day forward only. Not good. I hope Google will fix this, and soon.