# A sort-of warning about Google Analytics **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [August 26, 2007, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946 "2007-08-26T00:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2007, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946/1 "2007-08-26T00:27:32Z")
Firefox has started warning me from time to time about a “mismatched” security certificate on this site from Google analytics. When I go to a forum listing, a JS alert pops up saying that I’m accessing a site named “[www.google-analytics.com](http://www.google-analytics.com)” but the certificate belongs to “[www.google.com](http://www.google.com).” The cert is legit and of course everyone knows Google is legit. It’s actually a problem Google needs to work out or Firefox needs to learn to ignore - nothing the SDMB can do about it. Just thought I’d put a heads-up here in ATMB for anyone worried about this alert. It’s somewhat annoying, although it doesn’t happen every time I visit a forum listing, but it’s completely benign. ---
**Author:** ![gardentraveler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gardentraveler/32/3576_2.png) [@gardentraveler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gardentraveler)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2007, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946/2 "2007-08-26T01:36:32Z")
Thanks! I thought as much, but was going to post here to ask if others were seeing this pop-up too and whether my understanding of it was correct. GT ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2007, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946/3 "2007-08-26T07:40:47Z")
I use Firefox and I’ve never seen the popup for this site (although I do get it from time to time with others). ---
**Author:** ![gardentraveler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gardentraveler/32/3576_2.png) [@gardentraveler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gardentraveler)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2007, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946/4 "2007-08-26T07:56:45Z")
I’ve seen it 3 times in the past 3 days, but never before. GT ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2007, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946/5 "2007-08-27T05:56:09Z")
I have not tracked down the whole series, but it would appear to me that “google-analytics” is a spoof site. The [Google Analytics](http://www.google.com/analytics/) software is under the google. com domain with a direct to the analytics page: [Analytics Tools & Solutions for Your Business - Google Analytics](http://www.google.com/analytics/) I know of no Google™ application that is launched from any base site other than [google.com](http://google.com). (I am open to correction on that point.) I would guess that it might be time to run and AdAware sweep and a SpyBot analysis. (Might be nothing there, but it can’t hurt to be safe.) ---
**Author:** ![Puzzler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d07c76/32.png) [@Puzzler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Puzzler)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2007, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946/6 "2007-08-27T06:42:42Z")
[www.google-analytics.com](http://www.google-analytics.com) will redirect to [Analytics Tools & Solutions for Your Business - Google Analytics](http://www.google.com/analytics/) ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2007, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946/7 "2007-08-27T12:10:22Z")
"Google Analytics (GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. Its main highlight is that a webmaster can optimize his/her AdWords advertisement and marketing campaigns through the use of GA’s analysis of where the visitors came from, how long they stayed on the website and their geographical position. More importantly, a webmaster can define and track conversions, or goals. Goals might include sales, lead generation, viewing a specific page, or downloading a particular file. By using this tool, marketers can determine which ads are performing, and which are not, as well as find unexpected sources of quality visitors. > **[Google Analytics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics)** > > Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic and also the mobile app traffic & events, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. Google launched the service in November 2005 after acquiring Urchin. > As of 2019, Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics service on the web. Google Analytics provides an SDK that allows gathering usage data from iOS and Android app, known as Google Analytics for Mobile ... Then again, maybe it’s an elaborate ruse to take over the planet. Anything’s possible. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2007, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946/8 "2007-08-27T13:38:47Z")
If you Google “[google-analytics.com](http://google-analytics.com)” “certificate” you’ll see that there’s a lot of reports about this problem. Google is using their certificate that is registered for [google.com](http://google.com) for their [google-analytics.com](http://google-analytics.com) site. When they give people (like the SDMB) code to place on their site for use with Google Analytics, the URL that the script points to is [google-analytics.com](http://google-analytics.com). Look at the source of any SDMB page: ```auto ``` Security settings in some browsers will alert you to this fact, because what does your browser know? So, **tomndebb** , it is not spyware. It’s a legitimate problem. I was just trying to make users aware that it’s not as scary as it sounds. ---
**Author:** ![LionelHutz405](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lionelhutz405/32/536_2.png) [@LionelHutz405](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LionelHutz405)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2007, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-sort-of-warning-about-google-analytics/416946/9 "2007-08-27T13:57:38Z")
I get the same message when I access Gmail securely (via https, rather than http). I found a Firefox extension to hide the warning message, but I’m rather surprised Google hasn’t got it’s act together on this.