Google Analytics. Google Blogger. Why don't they just get along?

I received an email from a student in my Social Media 105 class 72 hours ago. She was having trouble linking her Google Blogger blog to Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is something I have used daily with the online magazine I advise, Grand Central . Feeling quite confident I could respond to her within five minutes, I went to the Analytics site and proceeded through their instructions.

Create a new account with the URL of your blog. Check.
Account is a single domain. Check.

Feeling pretty smug, I went to the next area. This is no techno idiot here, folks. This is Betsy Rau on the fast track to solving a student's problem. This is why I am a teacher. This is why I am paid the big bucks. This is why I am a computer goddess.

Paste this code on your site. Paste it onto every page you want to track immediately before the closing </head> tag.

Ok. I'm no dummy. </head> is HTML or code.

I copied.

Betsy Rau on the fast track is now speeding to her Blogger site.

(7 minutes have elapsed)

Reread the directions: Paste this code on your site. Paste it onto every page you want to track immediately before the closing </head> tag. 

So I'm on my site, fingers poised, ready to paste.
Where the heck do I paste it?
On my site. Immediately before the closing </head> tag.

Betsy Rau, formerly on the fast track was now on the highway to hell.

I emailed the student I would get right back to her as soon as I worked through a few "issues" and began searching the site.

(2 hours have elapsed)

I went to the dashboard area of my blog, where it is very simple to check your stats without linking to anything else. Still, the assignment is to link to Google Analytics, so I was gonna make it happen.

I tried template. This is what I saw.

Note: If you want to edit HTML, the type on the button is gray not black. So when you click it, over and over and over again while using every word you learned on the playground at Sacred Heart Academy, nothing happens.

I tried settings. I tried overview. I tried template, again and again and again, moving from one dynamic template to another. I went back to analytics. Read the directions for the tenth time. Nothing worked.

(4 hours have elapsed)

By this time I was convinced it was the stupid laptop computer I was using. It belongs to my husband and besides waiting 1-2 minutes for every page to load, it has a few other issues. Like it is two years behind on upgrades.

I moved to my iPad. Went through the same steps. Swore a lot. No HTML edit possibility.

(5 hours have elapsed. My husband has gone to bed.)

I now moved to our tower computer in the den, ignoring the strange message I received when I started it that said something about a windows shutdown and giving me options on how to start it up.

(6 hours have elapsed. It is 2:33 a.m.)

I gave up for the night. Before going to bed, however, I typed a lengthy email to my 105 class telling them not to stress over the analytics tracking. I recommended using the built in tracking in Blogger and promised to get back to them in the morning.

As I hit send, the screen went dark. Message lost. Computer dead. Champagne from Monday long gone.

I went to bed.

In the few hours I slept, I dreamed of head cheese from the Polish market, touch screens that wouldn't let you touch and champagne--just out of my reach.

The next morning I did what any college student would do. I went to YouTube.
"How to link Blogger to Google Analytics" brought me several choices. I picked number one.
It was in Arabic.
Number two did the trick.

A very nice man explained the entire process. One thing bothered me, though. It was a different looking dashboard.

After watching Nerdy White Kid Kills Gotye (You're vs Your by MacLethal), I went back to Blogger.

(3 hours have elapsed)

One of the options was to revert to the earlier Blogger format. Evidently it had just been updated.Once I got to the old format and saw the same dashboard as I saw on YouTube, I was able to click on template, go into the HTML, paste the snippet (That is NOT what I was calling it at this point) and waited for Google Analytics to do its thing.

In the meantime I went back to watch a few more Nerdy White Kid videos and decided to look at more Blogger to Analytics ones. This time I looked at the dates. When I found one from two months ago, I watched it.

Even though we had been directed to use Dynamic templates, the only way I could get the edit HTML button to function was to pick another style template. I am now a simple template kind of gal.

My vast experience with technology tells me there has to be an easier fix. In fact I am sure there is. Why, however, doesn't Google make it easier for a user of Google Analytics to link it to a Google Blogger site?

While I wait for an answer, I'm off to the store for another round of Champagne. This time I'm buying a case. Who knows what will happen next.