I’ve always appreciated and respected April Fools’ Day for the pranks, jokes and general shenanigans. Over the last several years, I’ve grown to anticipate it even more due to Google’s first-class hoaxes.
This year, they have not disappointed. There are a lot that I’ve seen already, and the day isn’t quite through.
What really impressed me, though, was the Google Analytics prank announcement. Entitled, Back to Hits, it explains that they are ditching all the fancy-pants reporting and metrics like segmentation, page views, visitors and simply going back to hits.
Why did this strike a chord in me? Well, because sooooo many people I know still refer to various things like visitors and pageviews as “hits.” I know it’s the geek in me that gags a little each time this happens, but maybe this joke by Google can do a little bit to raise awareness about what things website owners should actually be paying attention to.
Hits haven’t been a relevant metric since the very early days of the web. Most people don’t even know what it really means.
I think that’s why I like this one so much – some people will just think it’s funny. Some of us will really know why it’s hilarious.
Happy April Fools’ Day, everyone.
