Getting Google Analytics functioning on this blog was a bit of a head-scratching experience. Despite successfully setting up a Google Analytics account for the blog, and following directions from several WordPress websites, and even a WordPress book, I could not get Google Analytics to recognize the blog and get the “Tracking Status” to light up.

It turned out to be a simple problem — when copying and pasting code snippets from here to there, straight quotes were becoming curly quotes, and were not being recognized.

Changing all “smart” or curly quotes to straight ones solved the problem and the tracking script began running. I am not a programmer, but I am aware that this can be an issue. I just didn’t think of it. Lesson re-learned.