Two separate script tags for Google Analytics?

Question

Does anyone know why Google Analytics requires two separate script tags?

Specifically, their instructions advise users to embed the following snippet of code into a web

Answer 1

document.write occurs as soon as it is executed in code. So if we used your "one script block" example, the actual generated source code would end up looking like this:

Hence the var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-8720817-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); code would fail because _gat wouldn't be defined until the ga.js file is loaded.

Does that make sense?