I was prompted in Google Site Kit to try out its new Key Metrics feature yesterday. I thought it was useful.
It asked me questions and then added new information on its dashboard that was exactly what I was looking for. It is one of the few times Google’s questions have resulted in their product being better than it was before.

To be fair, I look at the GSK every day. It is interesting to see what articles seem to be the most popular and general trends in traffic. Traffic is always surprising. For example, I had both my highest traffic and lowest traffic this month just this week. The traffic is just a general indication that I am writing something that people can find useful. I don’t get any benefit from having higher traffic. Yes, I do have Google Ad Words, but the income is so pathetic that it isn’t worth the effort to do it in my opinion.
One of the least useful things in Google Site Kit is its analysis of the speed of my pages. All of my pages are served under a second and sometimes a fraction of a second, so the milliseconds that it is reporting to me are nothing that I need to worry about. It might be more useful if you have shared/slow hosting, or pages with very complex layouts that slow download time.
Is there a downside to the new Key Metrics feature? I don’t think so. It hasn’t slowed down the dashboard loading time, and it isn’t something new to learn or a new UI to adapt to. I like that companies can sometimes make gradual changes so it is easier for people to adjust.
Google has been focusing more lately. I think they tried to do too much and spread themselves too thin. No one can manage so many different directions and projects and have the kind of integration that people expect. I appreciate when they focus on their core products and improve them.