Quick Start - feeds for Google Earth and Maps

ShufflePoint's query tool now supports the creation of feeds for Google Earth and Maps. These feeds are URLs which when pasted into Google Earth or Maps will display Google Analytics data as geographical points.

Follow these steps to begin creating rich graphical displays of your GA data.

Step 1: Launch query tool

Step 2: Create a Geo-compatible query

GeoRSS and KML feeds must contain at a minimum the ga:city, ga:latitude, and ga:longitude dimensions and a single metric. In most cases, you will want to sort the rows by the metric.

Queries for KML feeds may optionally contain date/time and categorization dimensions. For details, see "Special KML query options" below.

Step 3: Generate the feed URL

Select one of the three geo feeds:

GeoRSS - a feed for Google Maps
KML 2D - a feed for Google Earth with circle radius to indicate metric value
KML 3D - a feed for Google Earth with 3D bars to indicate metric value

Step 4a: Click "Open" or "Maps" buttons.

If a KML feed type is select, and Google Earth is installed, and "Open" is pressed, then Google Earth will start and load the feed.

If "Maps" is pressed, the query tool will open Google Maps in a browser "Maps" is the default map view, and the KML will be renders as bubble markers. If the Feed was KML, and you have the Google Earth plugin installed, then changing to "Earth" view will display the will

Step 4b: Paste feed URL into Google Maps or Google Earth

In Google Maps, this is accomplished by pasting the feed into search field at the top of the page, and clicking "Search Maps". Colored markers will be placed on the map to indicate the locations of the visitors.

In Google Earth, this is accomplished by selecting from the menu "Tools > Web", and pasting the generated feed URL into the address bar directly below the earth display.

Special KML query options

Timestamped placemarks

KML feeds may optionally contain the dimensions ga:date and ga:hour. If present, the placemarks will be timestamped. Whenever timestamped placemarks appear in a KML feed, a time slider appears in the upper-right corner of the 3D display in Google Earth. To enable the time slider in Google Earth, go to View > Show Time, and select Automatically or Always. (The default is Automatically.)

The time slider allows users to:

Control the visibility of placemarks by adjusting the active time range
Play through the timeline as an animation

Currently, the ga:hour may only be present if the ga:date dimension is also present (this constraint may be relaxed in the future). Also be cognizant of the effect on the generated KML feed if your query timeframe is large. We recommend that if ga:date is present, then the overall query timeframe not exceed one year. And if ga:hour is present, the overall query timeframe should not exceed one month. Timeframes not following this guidance may fail to generate.

Segmenting dimension

In addition to the dimension discussed above, you may also have a segmenting dimension present. Example would be sp:profile or ga:browser. Basically any dimension which is not in set of ga:latitude, ga:longitude, ga:city, ga:date, ga:hour will be treated as the segmenting dimension. Only one segmenting dimension may be present.

If a segmenting dimension is present, then the placemarks will be color-coded by dimension member. There are about twenty pre-defined colors present in the feed generator. If the number of members exceeds twenty, the remainer will all have the same color.