Can I use Google Analytics on a Wordpress.com blog?

While it isn't supported directly, with a bit of effort you actually can use Google Analytics on a http://wordpress.com blog. I've been doing it for several months now and the solution is solid, albeit non-trivial to set up. It involves modifying DNS to point your domain at a content delivery network called CloudFlare which can be configured to inject the necessary Google Analytics tracking code into each of the blog pages that it returns. Before you begin you'll need the following: Your own domain (ex: http://myblog.com, not http://myblog.wordpress.com) The Domain Mapping upgrade from http://wordpress.com (http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/) Some technical experience If you meet the prerequisites and want to try it out then these are the steps to set it up: Configure CloudFlare to point to your blog Configure your domain registrar to point to CloudFlare Enable Google Analytics in the CloudFlare settings There's a bit of work here but if you're comfortable with DNS then you could probably set this up in 10 minutes. I'm not affiliated with CloudFlare in any way but it's an interesting service with lots of cool features (including the price - free) and I'd recommend looking into it if using Google Analytics on your http://wordpress.com blog is important to you. However, this isn't a simple solution and there is some risk. For example, if CloudFlare goes down then your blog will go down too. I explore the steps required and the pros and cons of this solution in more detail on my blog: http://jonathonbalogh.com/2012/05/07/how-to-use-google-analytics-on-a-wordpress-com-blog/

Google Analytics isn't available for http://wordpress.com hosted blogs. However, http://wordpress.com has it's own Stats area which records pageviews, top posts & pages, search engine terms, and clicks on external links. It also graphs the information. It also lists incoming links to your blog (pulled from Google Blog Search). http://wordpress.com Stats does not track unique visitors, countries, or IP addresses. Although this isn't as full-featured as Google Analytics, it provides adequate information for most new users and businesses on the Web. http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/

As Shon says, it is possible on a self-hosted Wordpress site - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/ If you're using http://Wordpress.com, you can integrate Google Webmaster Tools though (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/) if you select 'Tools' from the Wordpress Dashboard you can enter your Google Site Authentication key (which you'll get when you add a site to Google Web Master Tools). This will at least provide info on Links to your site, keywords etc.

Do you really need Google Analytics? There is a built in Stats feature. It integrates with your blogs perfectly, watching the search engines, display easy-to-read graphic about your blog statistics. Even you can see what did the people search in the Google that leads them to your blog. Yeah, it can't track how long the visitors read in your blog. But for average use, it is more than enough. If you really need Google Analytics, switch to http://WordPress.org, a self-hosted version.