Google advises putting the google analytics script right before closing the </head>.
However, I would prefer to combine it with the rest my javascript that are now all together in a cached, external file, which is loaded at the bottom of my HTML file. Can I do it my way? If so, what am I risking then/what's the cost of putting the below code not in the head but at the bottom of the HTML?
<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-22180365-1']);
_gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'none']);
_gaq.push(['_setAllowLinker', true]);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>
You're risking nothing really. Putting <script> tags at the end of the <body> is recommendable because of the blocking nature while executing the Javascript it encloses. Since the Javascript for GA is dynamically inserted and therefore non-blocking, you can put it anywhere.
I guess the only "problem" Google sees is, when putting that code at the bottom of your site, you might not catch visitors / pageloads cancel the request before completed. If someone calls your HTML document and cancels the request, the GA code might not get encountered (and therefore, not executed).