The Mysterious Google Analytics Site at gaqa07.org

Its not a bird nor a plane, etc. but it is one of the most intriguing Google Analytics sites I’ve encountered. Could this be one of the QA sites used by a GA development team?

It has no rational objective to win any “Coolest Site” award. In fact, it’s one of the most bland and boring sites out there, UNLESS you’re a geek — in which case it’s almost as cool as the iframe pages in our “Slicing and Dicing” posts ( Part 1 and Part 2)

gaqa07.org’s home page menu links simply divide the site into GA.js and urchin.js and from there, menus lead one into the depths of Goals, eCommerce, events demonstrations and tests – to an almost complete array of the GA & urchin’s feature sets.

There are often different methods exhibited of performing tracking like events. The source code is a great source of example code.

The site also features some of the less frequently used features such as character sets and folder paths for cookies.

Then there is gaqa06.org which is used to demonstrate/test some cross-domain features.

Each page also shows the data in GA’s cookies. Using it together with WASP forms a powerful alliance.

For those with a basic understanding of GA tagging and data tracking, it’s a great learning tool.

For others it can also serve as a test bed for figuring out those gaps in the documentation or our own understanding, shedding light into the black box.

With the owner’s permission, one can also copy the code to one’s own server, use one’s own Web Property ID and capture the data in one’s own GA profile.

Which brings me to the mystery question: Who is the owner? The Whois on the domain shows registered to one Jim Napier, but I’ve not managed to get the whois on Jim Napier.

The short URL describes its purpose well but gives little clue to its ownership.

Any help in this regard would be appreciated, particularly from Jim.

In the meantime, check out the site at
gaqa07.org